John Bever
John Bever, one of the original proprietors of Wooster, was a native of Ireland, and emigrated to America when quite young. His two brothers, William and Sampson Bever, and his sister Jane, also, emigrated from Ireland, but whether in company with the subject of this sketch, we do not know, and settled in Beaver County, Pa. John Bever settled in Georgetown, in Beaver County, Pa., along about the year 1788. He got into employ- ment of the Government, and furnished supplies for the block-houses kept for the security of the adventurous settlers, on the southern side of the Ohio river, from the invasions of the Indians.
After the State of Ohio was organized, he was employed as a surveyor by the Govern- ment of the United States. He surveyed Columbiana, Stark, Wayne, and other counties in the State, and was likewise one of the parties that laid out the county-seats of Columbiana, Stark and Wayne.
With these opportunities presented to him, he secured considerable property in the different localities, that in time became very valuable, and, at his death, his wealth was estimated at a quarter of a million dollars in money and lands.
His first marriage was to Miss Nancy Dawson, of Georgetown, about 1790, by which union there resulted five children. One daughter grew to womanhood, and married James L. Bowman, of Brownsville, Fayette County, Pa. Both she and her husband are dead. His first wife died about 1818, and in the fall of 1820 he was married a second time, to Lydia Vaughan, who bore him one child, Henry V. Bever, who now lives in Paris, Edgar County, Ill. She died September 22, 1849, in her 69th year. He built, in connection with Thomas Moore, the first merchant's flouring mill west of the mountains, on Little Beaver creek, and the first paper mill in Ohio; and the second west of the Alleghenies was erected 1805-6, on the same stream. Its proprietors were John Bever and John Coulter.
John Bever's father was a German by birth, and our best information is, that his mother was Irish. John spoke the German language fluently. It is claimed that religious troubles caused his father to remove from Germany to Ireland. The Irish invariably spell the name Beaver, and the Germans Bever, pronouncing the E as in Ever.
John Bever died May 26, 1836, near the State line, in Columbiana County, Ohio, on what he called his "Springford" farm, and in the house which he had built shortly before his death. He was about 80 years old when he died, and was buried on his farm, which was his expressed wish, about forty rods from his residence. In the year 1855 a land-slide occurred on the face of the hill where he was buried, which badly wrecked the brick wall enclosing his grave, when his son, Henry V. Bever, removed his remains to the burial place of his second wife, on her farm, one mile east of Onieda, Carroll County, Ohio. He was a member of the Episcopal church, and had been many years prior to his death.
The following extract is copied from the American Pioneer, published by John S. Williams, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1842:
When orders were given by the Government to the Surveyor-General of the North-western Territory to have a portion of the public lands therein surveyed and sub- divided into sections, many applications were made by persons for situations as deputies. Among the number was a young man from the extreme western part of Pennsylvania, who had, without pecuniary means or the facility of instruction, but by his own application and industry during the recess from labor, acquired a knowledge of surveying.
Clad in a hunting shirt and moccasins, the usual habiliments of the back- woodsman of the day, he presented himself personally to General Putnam, at Marietta, O., and made known his desire to have a district to run out. The General replied that there were so many applications he was afraid he could not gratify him, and that he could give no decisive answer for some time. "Sir," said the applicant, "I have come a consider- able distance, and am dependent altogether upon my own exertions for my support. Have you any work for me to do by which I can get a support until you can give me an answer?" "Yes," answered the General, "I have some wood to cut." "Sir," answered the young man, "I can swing an ax as well as set a compass!" and doffing his hunting shirt, went at it with full vigor, the General occasionally looking out to see how he progressed. The job was completed. "Sir," again said the applicant, "have you any drafting or platting in your office that I can assist you with?" "Yes," said the General, "I can give you some of that to do." In due time the plat was com- pleted and handed to the General, who examined it carefully, and with apparent surprise, alternately looking at the plat and the applicant, thus responded: "Young man, you may go home; you shall have the district you desire, and so soon as the necessary instructions are made out I will forward them," which was complied with, and so satisfactorily executed to the department by the young surveyor that at subsequent progression of surveys three districts were awarded to him by General Mansfield, the successor of Putnam. The young man thus represented as presenting himself was the late John Bever, Esq., formerly of Georgetown, Beaver County, Pa., and who has stated to the writer of this article that that inci- dent was probably the foundation of the ample fortune acquired in after life and possessed at the time of his death, in 1836.
From History of Wayne County, Ohio, From the Days of the Pioneers and First Settlers to the Present Time, by Robert Douglass, 1878