MIBERRIEAREA-L Archives

From:
Subject: William Shearer bio 1909
Date: 15 Oct 2004 11:30:58 -0600

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: Johnson Shearer
Classification: Query

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/mFB.2ACI/1133

Message Board Post:

WILLIAM SHEARER is one of the old settlers of Berrien county and is widely known as a prominent citizen, enjoying in full measure the confidence and good will to which he is entitled by a well spent life. His home is on section 16, Niles township, where he has one hundred and twenty acres of excellent land. He was born in Carroll county, Ohio, January 12, 1832. His father, John H. Shearer, was a native of Pennsylvania, whence he removed to Ohio and afterward to Indiana, locating in St. Joseph county. In 1853 he became a resident of Berrien township, Berrien county, and locating on a farm he there lived to the age of seventy-four years. His father was a native of Pennsylvania and was of German descent. John H. Shearer was united in marriage to Margaret Baker, who was likewise born in the Keystone state and was of German lineage. She lived to be about seventy-six years of age. By her marriage she became the mother of six sons and three daughters, all of whom reached adult year!
s, but onlv four are now living.
William Shearer, fourth Child and fourth son, was reared in Ohio until about fifteen years of age,when he went to Indiana,settling in St.Joseph county.He was about twenty-one years of age when he came to Berrien county,and in the counrty schools he had acquired his education,gaining a good knowledge of the common branches of learning which fit one for life's daily duties.He remained at home until twenty-three years of age and then established a home of his own by his marriage.
It was October 22, 1857, that Mr. Shearer was joined in wedlock to Miss Lydia Johnson, a native of this county and a daughter of John Johnson and Anna Belle Lybrook Johnson both of Virginia, John being one of the pioneer settlers here, having located in Berrien county when there was nothing but a Fort on the present site of Niles. Mr. and Mrs. Shearer began their domestic life in Niles township, where he purchased a farm(now 2830 M-140). He has cleared thirty acres of this land, the place comprising one hundred and twenty acres, which he has transformed in to a valuable property. The fields are productive and he annually harvests good crops. Everything about the place is indicative of his careful supervision and his labors have been of the most practical and progressive character. He has been engaged in threshing for many years, beginning the business before he was twenty-one and following it continuously to the present. There is no man in the county who has done as much t!
hreshing as Mr. Shearer, and he operated the first engine in this section of the county. He has thus become well known in agricultural circles and has numbered among his patrons for many years a number of the leading farmers in this portion of the state.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Shearer have been born six children: Minnie, now the wife of J. I. Skinner, of Little Rock, Arkansas ; Emma and Ettie, both deceased; Belle, the wife of Guy Irwin, of the Indian Territory; Nellie, who is the widow of William House,. and is a stenographer in the employ of the Studebaker Company, of South Bend; and Gertrude, a music teacher, residing at home. Mr. Shearer has been identified with the interests of Berrien county during the long years of his residence here. His early political allegiance was given to the Whig party, and when the Republican party was formed he joined its ranks and has since been one of its stalwart advocates; He has been a member of the Free Baptist church fot about forty years and for a long period has been one of its deacons and has taken a most active and helpful part in its work.


researching this "Johnson line" also

This thread:

• William Shearer bio 1909 by