Some Pioneers of Union Township

The Brammer’s, The Booth’s, and The Wakefield’s Were Among the Earliest Settlers of Southern Ohio, Coming There from North and East

By R. C. Hall, Ph. D.

Union Township, Lawrence County, Ohio, lies on the Ohio River just below the Ohio Company’s Purchase. It belonged originally – that is, originally so far as the United States is concerned – to one of those tracts of land known as Congress Lands because they were sold in parcels of varying sites direct[ed] by the government to individuals under rules and regulations laid down by the Congress.

Union Township is a regulation government land township except for a portion of what would have been its southern part, had it not been cut off by the Ohio River. In other words, it contains 28 full sections, each one-mile square, and seven fractional sections – a part of each of sections 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, and 33 as well as all of sections 34, 35, and 36 being missing – or, what would have been these sections in a full township, are missing.

Union Township is watered by two of the largest streams of Southern Ohio, namely Symmes Creek and Indian Guyandotte Creek, the latter commonly known as Indian Guyan. It contains two incorporated municipalities – Proctorville and Chesapeake – and several unincorporated villages such as Getaway, Bradrick, etc.

In discussing the pioneer families of such a region, one is generally confronted with the difficulties of boundaries. That is, it is difficult to choose families that were purely Union Township Pioneers.

Restless Ancestors

Our ancestors, at least our earlier ones, were frequently restless individuals, always looking for more and better land somewhere else besides the spot on which they happened to be at any particular given moment. Thus, they frequently moved from spot to spot and actually were pioneers in a number of communities. Then, too, some of them owned land or were otherwise identified with more than one community.

Thus, a number of the early settlers in Quaker Bottom purchased their land from the Ohio Company, in Rome Township, but established businesses of various kinds across the line in Union Township. And so, for this sketch, we have chosen a few families that have been closely identified with Union Township from the date of its early settlement down to recent years, although some of their members might with propriety be considered also pioneers of other townships.

The original pioneers of the Brammer family. Or of that branch of it about which we are about to speak, were Edmund Brammer and wife, who migrated to this region and settled on Symmes Creek about six miles from its mouth, in 1817. Mr. Brammer was a native of Virginia, as was his wife, whose maiden name was Mary Lee. Mr. Brammer passed away in 1822 and his wife in 1844, but not before they had established a home in the wilderness and laid the foundations for one of the leading families of Lawrence County, Ohio.

James Brammer, a son of Edmund Brammer and his wife, was also a native of Virginia and thus a pioneer immigrant to Southern Ohio. He was born on February 25, 1791, in Patrick county of the “Old Dominion,” and, on January 11, 1814, he married Sarah M. Seamonds, who was born in Albemarle county, VA., in 1794.

Fought in 1812

James Brammer was a soldier in the War of 1812, and no doubt, like many another [others] of those fighters, was attracted to the fertile and abundant “western” lands, at that time. At any rate, it was not long after the conclusion of that conflict before he was taking up land in Southern Ohio.

He came the year following his father’s immigration and settled on the farm later acquired by Creed Templeton and where he lived so long. This farm is perhaps one of the few still known to the younger people of the region by the name by which it was so long known by their elders, that is, the Templeton Farm.

James Brammer did not remain on the Templeton Farm, but about one year, however, after which he sought a home even deeper in the wilderness. He and his wife were then removed to the farm on which they remained for the rest of their earthly career. It was situated over the township line and in what is now Windsor Township, on McKinney Creek. Thus, they became pioneers of two Lawrence County Townships, namely, Union and Windsor.

Mr. Brammer was a great hunter according to the best information we have been able to secure about him, and it was probably the abundance of the game then prevalent in this region that made it so attractive to him. At least this was one of the attractions which probably influenced to some extent most of these early settlers in their choices of home sites. At that time all the small game common to this climate flourished in great abundance in Southern Ohio, and according to report handed down, even larger animals, such as bears and deer, were not at all uncommon.

Plenty of Thanks

But Mr. Brammer had plenty of other tasks besides hunting to occupy his attention. He cleared one of the first farms cleared in what is now Windsor Township and being a man interested in the better things of life and community welfare, as soon as sufficient settlers had joined him, he helped organize a school and a church. These are said to have been the first organizations of their kind in the township. Both Mr. and Mrs. Brammer were staunch members of the Baptist church and community leaders.

E. S. Brammer, son of James Brammer and wife, was born on March 19, 1824, in what is now Windsor Township, Lawrence County, Ohio, but as an immigrant to Union Township, so to speak, as he later removed across the line into that township. According to the record before us, however, he was married in Lawrence Township, Lawrence County, Ohio on March 11, 1849. Mrs. Brammer’s maiden name was Eliza Pemberton.

Although Mrs. Brammer was born in Jackson County, Ohio comparatively late date on March 12, 1829, she was a descendant of a pioneer family deserving of some mention in this connection. Her parents were Mr. and Mrs. Richard Pemberton, early immigrants to Southern Ohio. Richard Pemberton had been born in Tennessee in 1799 and his wife, who had been Jemima Hill, passed away in Jackson county in 1835, after which her husband moved to Lawrence county and settled on what became known as Dick’s Creek.

This migration is of special interest since it represents a line of migration apparently not commonly followed and of which little note appears to have been taken by the chroniclers of these early movements of population. It was not a common thing to find the drift of population from the south to the north, except if, we include Virginia and Kentucky. Of course, the drift from those states into the Northwest Territory was strong and rather continuous until well after the formation and admission of Ohio to the union. But apparently, most of those who migrated further south remained there.

Unusual Migration

E. S. Brammer, after settling in Union Township was chosen a Justice of the Peace, an office which was of much more importance perhaps in those days of more local government than it is today. Mr. and Mrs. Brammer’s children were Richard, Lucinda, and Marian.

Edmund Brammer, the immigrant to Lawrence County, had several grandsons who became more than ordinary citizens of Union Township – more than ordinary, that is, in the way of public service. The sons of his son James Brammer served both in the military and civil service of their country. While E. S. Brammer, as we have seen, was becoming a leading farmer and local official, his brothers, Roland and Charles, were making equally worthy careers. The two latter also served in the army during some of the hardest fightings of the Civil War.

Charles Brammer was born on April 15, 1832, and while not old enough to experience all the pioneer hardships that his grandfather and father did, yet he must have found many of the pioneer customs still in vogue and had few of what we are pleased to call modern conveniences.

Married Rebecca Earls [Earles]

On March 17, 1852, he married Rebecca Earls [Earles] at Burlington, Lawrence County, Ohio.

Mrs. Brammer’s parents were Martin and Elizabeth (Sumpter) Earls [Earles] and like the parents and grandparents of Mr. Brammer, they were also early pioneer immigrants to Lawrence County. They arrived in this region about the same time as the Brammers, that is, in, or about 1817. Mr. Earls [Earles] was born on November 19, 1800, and passed away on April 28, 1840. His wife was about four years his junior having been born on February 18, 1804. She passed away on July 11, 1836. When they came to this region, they naturally lived the customary pioneer life.

Mr. Brammer enlisted as a soldier in the Federal Army during the Civil War. Although according to the data before us, his enlistment took place in 1864, he served throughout the closing days of the war, and as we know, those were some of the more important ones, including some of the hardest fighting of the conflict. He was a member of Company F, 173rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

After the close of the war, Mr. Brammer returned to Union Township and resumed his work as a farmer and community leader. Later he became a member of the Board of Commissioners of Lawrence County and was highly respected, both for his business ability and his personal integrity. He and his wife were long-time members of the Baptist Church in their home community and several of their children also joined the organization.

Many Descendants

Mr. and Mrs. Brammer had the following children: James, Sarah, J.M., Mary (Thacker), C.L., Alice, William, Diana, Rachel, and A. D. Brammer.

Descendants of the pioneer family of Brammers are numerous and numbered among the best citizens of Southern Ohio and neighboring territory. Of course, it would exceed the scope of this sketch to follow their careers in detail, as we are now chiefly interested in the pioneers of these families.

It may be well, however, in this connection, to mention in a little more detail, Roland Brammer, the brother of E. B. and Charles Brammer.

Roland Brammer enlisted in the Federal Army at the outbreak of the Civil War and served the period of his enlistment. However, at the second Battle of Bull Run, he had the misfortune of receiving a severe wound to the head from which he never recovered, although he survived until September 14, 1876. It was thought that his mental faculties were somewhat disturbed by this wound which so severely injured his head. Thus Mr. Brammer became one of the many unfortunate casualties suffered by Union Township in that great conflict.

Moreover, Roland Brammer offered a fine illustration of what some people are pleased to refer to as the strange ways of fate. However, that may be, his death resulted from one of those accidents – which was all the more peculiar in view of the dangers he had undergone. It was caused by the accidental discharge of a gun. Thus, a man who had served through many of the most dangerous campaigns of a great war and who had been severely wounded in one of the fiercest battles of that war, survived to be killed by this accidental discharge of a gun some years and many miles removed from the scenes of violence associated with warfare.

Pioneer dangers

Peculiar accidents appear to have been not uncommon with the Brammers. For we find that years earlier another Brammer, one of the pioneers, had been killed by a falling tree, which emphasized the type of danger experienced by pioneer settlers in a new country a century ago. In place of watching for automobiles they had to look out for falling trees and while they were not troubled by falls from airplanes, they were endangered by runaway horses. And strangely enough, people have not yet apparently learned the danger lurking in the ‘unloaded gun.”

One of the earliest settlers of Union Township was Robert Booth, who came to Lawrence County in 1815 and not only helped found the county and township but also became the head of a pioneer family, several members of which have played important parts in the history of their country. Mr. Booth was born in eastern Virginia in 1792 and served as a soldier during the War of 1812, after which he migrated to Southern Ohio, as did so many of his comrades.

Unlike so many of those from the east and north, however, who either received grants or purchased land from the Ohio Company, Mr. Booth purchased a tract, or “entered government land” as it was called, a short distance west of the western boundary of the Ohio Company’s Purchase, in what is now Union Township, of which he was one of the first settlers. His wife was Nancy Oliver who was born in Pennsylvania on June 3, 1793. After his second marriage, he settled about two miles from the mouth of Symmes Creek.

Endured Hardships

When Robert Booth settled in this region, there was scarcely a clearing in all of what is now Union Township. Naturally, he and his wife endured many of the hardships and incidents of frontier life. But Mr. Booth soon had a clearing made and a home established in the wilderness. Not only did Mr. and Mrs. Booth establish one of the first homes in the township but they also pioneered religious leaders, and it is interesting to note that Mr. Booth was a faithful member of the Baptist Church while Mrs. Booth was apparently just as faithful a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Their son, Isaac Booth was born on November 20, 1829, and was thus one of the early natives of Union Township. His wife, whose maiden name was Martha Whitehead, was also born in this township on December 23, 1836, but her parents, like his, were immigrants to this region.

Both her father and mother were natives of Halifax County, VA. Her father, Samuel Whitehead, was born May 16, 1805, while her mother, Martha (Bates) Whitehead, was born February 8, 1808. We mention these facts particularly because the Whitehead family was also one of the first to settle in what is now Union Township, although several years after the Booth family. It was in 1831 that Mr. Whitehead took up his residence here not far from the home of Mr. Booth.

Were Staunch Baptist

The Whiteheads were staunch Baptist and Mr. Whitehead became one of the founders of the Union Baptist Church which he helped build of which both he and his wife became members.

After the marriage of Isaac Booth and Martha Whitehead, which took place in Union Township on December 16, 1856, they settled on a farm on Symmes Creek and about four miles from its mouth near a place known then as Town House, probably because the building maintained by the township trustees for a voting place and the transaction of township business and then commonly known as the Town House, was situated there. The old townhouses are curious relics of the old New England system of so-called town government but which in the middle west came to be called township government. They correspond roughly to the city halls of incorporated municipalities.

After residing on that farm, for a short while, Mr. and Mrs. Booth removed to a farm adjoining the one purchased a short time afterward on which he moved near the close of the Civil War in 1864. His long subsequent residence on this place entitled it to the name of the Booth farm, which became practically one of the landmarks, so to speak, of Union Township.

Mr. Booth’s chief industrial and financial interests centered on farming what is known as the “extensive” variety. That is, he did not make a practice of raising a great number of crops but a system of intensive cultivation, rotation, etc., but devoted most of his energy to the production of grain on a large scale.

Followed His Mother

Although this kind of farming is still practiced in the far west, it was almost gone out of existence in Southern Ohio.

In religious views, Mr. Booth appears to have followed in the footsteps of his mother, he, his wife, and several children became loyal and faithful members of the Union Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church.

Thus, we see how the Booth’s and the Whitehead’s played important parts in the establishment of two of the leading religious denominations of Union Township – the Methodist and the Baptist organizations. A school was also early established in this community and a real town might have developed there, perhaps, had it not been for the more favorable location near the mouth of the creek where Rockwood was established.

Just as the Civil War broke out, in 1861, Mr. Booth became a Justice of the Peace in Union Township and held that office for years. He was also a township trustee for several years and a leader in many community affairs.

His brother, George, joined the Union Army in 1861 and was killed on June 16, 1862, and thus became one of the Union Township boys who gave his life for his country.

Isaac Booth and his wife were the parents of the following children: Eva, Nanine, Sadie, Samuel, Oliver, Isaac, John, William, Emma, George, and Campbell.

Of these, John, better known by his middle name of Edwin, perhaps, became quite an educator and traveler. He was the founder of the original Booth Business School in Huntington [WV] and has written quite entertainingly of some of his extensive travels.

Towns Build on River

A number of other members of the family still survive and are numbered among the leading citizens of various communities in Southern Ohio and Lawrence County in particular.

Since the settlement of the pioneers of the Booth family in Union Township that region has emerged from the wilderness into one of the most important sections of Lawrence County. Being opposite the city of Huntington [WV]. Its villages which now form almost a continuous line from one end of the township to the other along the Ohio River enjoy most of the advantages of the city just across that stream. While the remainder of the township back of the river hills is still essentially rural, the value of its farms has been greatly increased by its close proximity to this suburban region.

Most of the early settlers, however, were hesitant about penetrating far from the river, except along the larger creeks which afforded waterpower and along the banks of which roads were easier constructed than elsewhere. Thus, many of the pioneer homes were along Symmes and Indian Guyandotte creeks. Symmes, being the largest stream crossing the township afforded the best waterpower and doubtless attracted the most citizens. At any rate, we find many of the present families of this section whose ancestors immigrated first to the Symmes bottom of the country.

Among these one of the most prominent families was that of the Wakefield’s who settled in Union Township.

Wakefield Family

There have been perhaps few pioneers whose descendants became as widely known as those of E. W. Wakefield. By widely known we mean that they scattered far and wide and became leading citizens in many and various places. Some years ago, when this writer, as a teacher, went to a community new to him in Northwestern Ohio, a community of entire strangers to him, he soon made the acquaintance of a member of this fine family. And now, is our research into its history we find that some of its members migrated to the far west, some to the far north, and some to the south and east.

E. W. Wakefield was born at Clairmont, N.H. August 1, 1799, and when only about eight years of age, found himself a member of that group of New England emigrants going out from their homes to seek their fortune in the “west” which then included Ohio. In 1807, he reached the southern part of this state and became one of the first settlers of what, some ten years later, was to become Lawrence County, Ohio.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Wakefield was one of the New England immigrants to Lawrence County, Ohio which perhaps accounts in part for the fact that his family early became identified with the anti-slavery movement. However, he found enthusiastic support from his neighbors who had come from Virginia and were, for the most part, also opposed to slavery.

Married a Gillett

During his youth, Mr. Wakefield found conditions in Union Township about as primitive, perhaps, as we of today can well imagine. But like the Booth’s, and the Brammer’s, the Wakefield’s set about carving a home out of the wilderness and the establishment of those institutions, so needful to a civilized community. On September 30, 1827, Mr. Wakefield married Candance Gillett of Rome Township. Mrs. Wakefield herself was a member of a typical pioneer family. Her people were the Gillett’s of Rome Beauty Apple fame. She was born in Ulysses County, NY on May 23, 1807, the very year in which her future husband came “west.”

Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield settled on a farm in Union Township, Lawrence County, Ohio, and became the parents of a large family of children. Of course, there was nothing so remarkable about that as most pioneer families were large, but there were many things that did make the Wakefield family remarkable.

In the first place, the Wakefield’s were remarkable for intellectual and religious qualities. In spite of the handicaps of a frontier community with almost no schools, practically every member of this family secured a fine education for their time, and in the matter of general reading and study, their attainments would probably put to shame a majority of people today. Particularly was this true in religious reading and study? No less than three of its family became ministers of the gospel, one, in particular, being for years a leading preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In fact, it is hardly too much to say that the Wakefield’s formed a family of preachers and teachers.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield were named: Albert, Dianna, Marinda, John, E. W. Junior, Keziah, Peter, Chloe, and Columbus. Of these, Diana, who married a Holroyd, passed away in 1865 and was followed into the Great Beyond in 1871 by her sister, Chloe, who had emigrated to what was then the territory of Montana.

The Pioneer Spirit

This emigration brings up another interesting fact in reference to the Wakefield’s, for it is but one illustration of the continued pioneer spirit of the family. For just as the parents came from New York and New England to the “west” of their day to establish a home, so [did] a number of their children moved to the “west” of their day to participate in the development of the advancing frontier. Albert moved to Lake Washington, Minn., Peter to Carthage, Jasper County, MO., while Chloe, as we have seen, removed to Montana.

Marinda became a schoolteacher and taught at various places in Quaker Bottom and its vicinity. This writer’s father was one of her pupils. This writer remembers her in her latter years as Mrs. Marinda Reed, a very religious lady and punctual in her attendance at church and various Christian gatherings, societies, etc. She lived for many years on Elizabeth Street in Proctorville, Ohio on the site now occupied by the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Atkinson.

E. W. Wakefield, Jr., better known as the Rev. Elhanan Wakefield, early in his career espoused the anti-slavery cause. When the call came for volunteers to help John Brown and others bring Kansas into the Union as a free state, Elhanan Wakefield was one of those who grasped his musket and hastened to the defense of freedom. According to the date we have on his subsequent career, he settled at Annadale, Fairfax County, VA., after the Civil War.

Later he returned to Proctorville, Ohio when his sister Mrs. Reed became ill. He will be remembered by many people in the Tri-State region. To his last days on earth, he carried one arm in a sling as a result of the sacrifices he made in his youth for the cause of liberty, on the plains of Kansas.

Rev. Columbus Wakefield, after some time in the ministry, passed away in 1876 and Rev. John Wakefield remained an active minister in Ohio for many years.

Thus, we see how immigrants came from the north, the south, and the east to settle in Union Township, as well as other townships in Lawrence County and Southern Ohio in general. Our researches into this subject lead us to believe that the three families chosen for consideration today are typical of a vast majority of the settlers of this region.

Of course, there were many – too many – of these settlers who apparently were content with a mere existence without much ambition to perform any great service to their fellowmen. And, on the other hand, there was no doubt many others whose services were as outstanding, or more so than those we have been discussing in this sketch.

But, in a sketch of this kind, its writer has to make a choice, and perhaps others may be chosen for similar study from time to time in the future.

Anyway, from our research into this matter, we believe Union Township has much of which to be proud in the families of the Brammers, Booth’s, and Wakefield’s.