The
exact origin of our branch of the Brewer family
is unknown, however, based on current information
it is most likely that the roots of our family
began in Great Britain. Family researchers
have published a variety of family trees suggesting
England or Wales as possible beginnings.
One of
the earliest and best researched histories of
our family was published in the late 1930's by
Dr. Waren H. Brewer. Dr. Brewer's book,
"History of Brewer Family of North Carolina,
Tennesse, Indiana and Illinois," has
become a standard reference for researchers.
His chronicle of the family's history begins with
Thomas Brewer in the 1700's before the American
Revolution. Dr. Brewer provides the following
narrative on Thomas's early life.
"Thomas
Brewer was born 1760-1770 in perhaps N.C.
or S.C., Md. or Va. He was of Scotch-Irish
descent. He is supposed to have been
married about 1769 in S.C. to [Lucritia].
He is said to have served in the Revolutionary
War. At the time of the birth of his
eldest son, William, about 1790, he lived
in N.C. and still resided there in 1808-9
in the Yadkin River Valley, near Salisbury
where his son Nathan was born. It was
this valley of Yadkin River that was the home
of Daniel Boone. It seems very probable
that he was the Thomas Brewer with whom William
Brewer served in the War of 1812 in the First
Regiment East Tenn. Militia, enlisting in
the same company and for the same length of
service. It may be that Thomas and James,
who may have been his brother, enlisted and
William accompanied them. Thomas spent
some time in Ky. where his youngest son, Andrew
Jackson, was born about 1815 and where tradition
tells us that Thomas was overseer of slaves
for Henry Clay.
Thomas
came to Indiana probably about 1815-17 and
settled on West River in Wayne Co. near the
old Indian Trail about two miles west of Economy
where he spent his life trapping and hunting.
Like his son William, Thomas settled beyond
the treaty lines and so does not appear in
the 1820 Census but he does in the 1830 Census
of Perry Twp., page 60 to 70 and with him
are listed one male, age 10 to 15, doubtless
Andrew Jackson, and a female, age 40 to 50,
doubtless his wife but with age incorrectly
shown. He seems never to have made a
land entry but his son, Nathan, entered on
Oct. 31, 1822 the land where evidently his
father lived and deeded this land to his father
on Jan. 27, 1831. He may be buried in
West River Cemetery, which is about a mile
from his old home, but no stone evidences
that. He may be buried in Kosciusko
Co. near where his son Jackson lived.
The
land where Thomas lived was then in Perry
Twp. and later in Dalton Twp. The earliest
settlement in Perry Twp. was made in 1815
and was known as the 'Tennessee Settlement.'
Most of the settlers from Tenn. were Friends
and a meeting house, called 'Springfield Meeting'
was built one and one quarter miles northwest
of Economy in 1816 on the old Indian Trail.
Many of the settlers in the north part of
Wayne Co. came from Guilford and Randolph
Counties, N.C. and resided a short time in
Jefferson and Knowx Counties, Tenn. where
some of their children were born. These
early settlers were mostly Friends (Quakers)
and when asked from what part of N.C. they
came, the common answer was Guilford Co.,
near Clemens Store, Beards Hat Shop, Deep
River Settlement of Friends, or Dobsons Cross
Roads.
Thomas'
inclination for hunting and trapping seems
to be conclusive evidence that he was not
an emigrant but reared in America and acquired
in Yadkin River Valley, N.C. or elsewhere,
the pioneer frontiersman's habits of living.
The fact that he was an overseer of slaves
for Henry Clay bears out this supposition,
for he would acquire the ability to handle
slaves only by early training at home or in
other slave surroundings. This recalls
to memory the statement that the family formerly
held slaves but whether few or many was never
stated. The Quaker migration from N.C.
through Tenn. and Ky. to Ind. was prompted
by the Friends objection to slavery.
The
fact that Thomas' oldest son was named William
may indicate that the father of Thomas was
William Brewer. By reference to the
1790 Census of the Salisbury District we find
a Wm. Brewer as well as a Wm. McKnight and
listed there among many names familiar in
early Wayne Co., Ind. we also find the name
Boone. We have no record of the name
of Thomas' wife, but the 1850 Census report
for Andrew Jackson Brewer lists with him a
Lucretia Brewer, age 84 (therefore born 1766)
who was born in N.C. and this is probably
Jackson's mother, the same name as the eldest
of William Brewer's daughters. Thomas
may have had brothers (b) Stephen, both prior
to 1775; (c) James, born prior to 1775; (d)
Joseph; and (e) William, and we are assuming
such were the facts.
Thomas
Brewer's wife was an English woman, whose
father probably came to S.C. from England
prior to the Revolution and was well to do.
After marriage and while living in Tenn. she
made a visit to her father in S.C. traveling
alone on horseback, a distance of about four
hundred miles and on her return led a horse
with her, a gift from her father. He
grandson, John, in telling of her, as given
above, stated that her father was rich, which
indicates that her family was sufficiently
well to do for that fact to have been well
impressed on John's mind while a boy.
The trip she made of more than 400 miles shows
that she was self reliant. The possession
of any amount of wealth in those days gave
the only opportunity for education and culture
and the fact thet her father apparently had
large possessions lays the basis for the assumption
that her husband must have been of good family
and approach. If he had been otherwise,
she would never have married him and only
for such reasons would she have ever had an
opportunity to meet him socially, for in those
days social lines were closely drawn.
The Brewer family must have possessed some
standing in Tenn., otherwise Jane McKnight's
family would never have consented to their
daughter marrying William. Thomas' children
were: (1) William; (2) Nancy; (3) Stephen;
(4) probably Levi of Madison Co.; (5) Briant
or Bryant, of Fountain Co.; (6) Nathan; (7)
Wilson; and (8) Andrew Jackson."
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Our branch
of the Brewer family descends from Thomas to his
son Briant Brewer, Sr. of Fountain County, Indiana.
Dr. Brewer's book offers this brief record of
Briant's life
"Bryant
(or Briant) Brewer, Sr. appears in the 1830
Census of Fountain County, Indiana, age 30
to 40, that is, he was born 1790 to 1800.
He married Eliza Briggs, who was born 1799
in S. Carolina, for which marriage license
was issued in Wayne County, Indiana on Aprirl
13, 1820. He probably was married in
Wayne County before going to Fountain Co.,
but no return was made of marriage for County
record. On Oct. 20, 1826 he entered
the W1/2NE1/4 Sec. 21, T19NR8W in Fountain
Co., Ind. The fact that John Brewer
moved to Fountain Co., where his second child
was born, led to the conclusion that relatives
of John must have been living there and search
disclosed recor4d of Bryant as well as of
Robert. Bryant, Sr. may be the person
for whom Stephen named his eldest son Bryant.
We fell certain that Bryant, Sr. was the son
of Thomas and brother of William. His
family appears in 1850 Census so he must have
died prior. The children of Bryant,
Sr. and Eliza are: (a) Bryant, Jr. born 1831,
married Jane Hibbs, Oct. 13, 1850 and moved
to Kansas and had William, Sanford, Homer
and Willard; (b) Caroline, married John Bodine
and lived in Fountain County; (c) Eria (Lindsey);
(d) Ellen (Garrison); and (c) Lorenzo Dowell,
married Mary Bonebrake, March 27, 1845."
Research
following the publication of Dr. Brewer's book
indicates that in addition to the four children
reported for Briant and Eliza Brewer, they had
other children as well. A family Bible,
owned by descendants of Bryant Brewer, Jr. records
the births, deaths and marriages of Briant and
Eliza's children. Among the births recorded
is William Irvin Brewer, "Born February the
4... 1827." Briant's son, William Irvin
Brewer, is the next generation in our family line.
Research
by William Willard Brewer, great-grandson of Bryant
and Jane Brewer, also links William to Briant.
His research includes the 1848 sale of land in
Fountain, Indiana by William's brother Lorenzo
Dow Brewer. This record reads as follows:
"On
21 Feb 1848, Lorenzo Dow Brewer and his wife,
Mary, conveyed to William Brewer their 1/7th
interest in '...the West half of the South
half of the South East quarter of Section
Sixteen (16)...' On the same day, in
a separate deed, William I. Brewer conveyed
the same, along with his own 1/7th share of
the same property to Samuel Paugh. The
shares came to Lorenzo Dow and William I.
Brewer h\as heirs of their father, Bryant
(or Briant) Brewer, deceased."
In his
research, William Willard Brewer also notes that:
"William
Irvin Brewer is believed to have served in
the Mexican War. Margaret Key (Brewer)
Foy has an old muzzle loading rifle that has
been handed down in the family, and is supposed
to have belonged to a member of the family
who carried it in the Mexican War. William
Irvin is the most likely family member to
have been in the Mexican War. An examination
of the Fountain County, Indiana history shows
that a William Brewer was one of the eighty
soldiers enlisted from Fountain County during
this war."
As further
support of William I. Brewer's service in the
Mexican War, William Willard Brewer provides this
quote from Thomas A. Clifton's book, Past
and Present of Fountain and Warren Counties, Indiana,
published in 1918:
"The
rank and file of the citizens in Fountain
County have ever proven their loyalty to the
flag of their country. She has had her
part in the war with Mexico, the Civil war
and the Spanish-American War. When the
war came on with the sister republic, Mexico,
in 1846, Fountain County furnished eighty
soldiers, named as follows: ... John Bodine,
William Brewer ..."
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Little
more is known about William's early life.
Marriage records from Covington, Indiana show
that William I. Brewer married Mary [Brewer] on
21 March 1848, about a month after William sold
the property described above. Information
from the census records indicates that William
and Mary continued to live in Indiana for at least
a year after their marriage. Sometime between
1849 and 1850 they moved to Iowa. The 1856
Iowa State Census for Boone Township, Webster
County, records William, Mary and their first
three sons, John W., Briant, and Daniel.
John W. Brewer's birthplace is recorded as Indiana
and his approximate age as eight (placing his
birth year in 1848). Briant and Daniel's
birth place is recorded as Iowa. Briant's
age is shown as five and Daniel's as three.
This would indicate that Briant was born in Iowa
around 1850, or two years after the marriage. |
Bryant
Brewer, was born 14 November 1850 in Iowa.
Bryant married Sarah Elizabeth Walker in Coles
County, Illinois on 7 April 1868. Sarah
was born in Kentucky, around 1842. All records
indicate that Bryant, like his father before him,
was a farmer. Bryant and Sarah lived in
Illinois until at least 1877. During this
time they had three sons, John W. Brewer (who
may have been named after Bryant's younger brother
mentioned above), Charles Allen Brewer, and Richard
Franklin Brewer. By 1880 Bryant and Sarah
had moved to Butler County, Kansas where their
fourth son, George Harrison Brewer, was born.
The records
show that by 1883, Bryant and his family had joined
his parents and three of his brothers in Crawford
County Arkansas. This date is established
by the fact that their fifth son, James Thomas
Brewer, was born in Crawford County on 31 May
1883. Sarah passed away on 9 April 1891.
She is buried in Gill Cemetery, Crawford County,
Arkansas [near Van Buren].
According
to the Crawford County marriage records, Bryant
married four more times after Sarah's death.
His second
marriage was to Annie L. McWilliams on 31 December
1891. Family tradition says that Annie,
who was 17 when she married 40 year old Bryant,
stayed up all night on their honeymoon with a
crying baby and left the next morning never to
be heard of again!
Bryant's
third marriage was to 37 year old Matilda W. Morogroves
on 13 September 1892. Little is known about
this marriage, except that it was also short.
There is no record of any children, and just over
a year later Bryant married again for the fourth
time.
He married
his fourth wife, Margaret Adams on 9 November
1893. Bryant and Margaret, who was called
Maggie (and sometimes Mary), had two children:
Florence Elnore Brewer and Henry Brewer.
Florence
was born on 24 September 1894. At the age
of 19, she married John Allen (age 20) on 1 May
1914 in Crawford County. John and Florence
had seven children. Their daughter-in-law,
Corrine (McGee) Allen, still resides in Van Buren,
Arkansas. Bryant and Margaret's son, Henry
Doyle Brewer, was born in 1896 and died approximately
one year later. He is buried in Bushmiaer
Cemetery, Crawford County, Arkansas.
On 16
April 1899 at age 49, Bryant married his fifth
wife, Louisa A. Sheridan. There is no record
of children from this marriage. Bryant and
Louisa are believed to have been married until
Bryant's death on 1 April 1917. Bryant is
buried near his first wife Sarah in Gill Cemetery,
Crawford County, Arkansas.
As mentioned
earlier, Bryant and his first wife, Sarah, had
five sons: John W., Charles Allen, Richard Franklin,
George Harrison, and James Thomas. Although
it is beyond the scope of this brief history to
detail the lives of each of them here, the reader
is encouraged to refer to the family tree (pedigree)
charts and other materials that follow.
Much of this album is dedicated to tracing their
marriages and children.
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