Eden (Edon, Eaton) Neer

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Eden's land in Centre Township, Ohio

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Eden's obituary in the Bryan Democrat

Eden (Edon, Eaton) Neer, who may have been the son of John Neer and Sarah, was born on 15 Dec 1807 in Loudoun Co., VA, died on 17 Apr 1890 in Kendallville, Indiana at age 82, and was buried in Lick Creek Cemetery, Melbern OH.

Variations of His Name

Eden's name appears in several different forms, as follows.

Eden Neer: so attested in the County of Williams history.

Eden Near: so attested in the Williams County illustrated historical atlas.

Eden Nier: so attested in the 1860 federal census.

Edon Neer: so attested on Phebe’s tombstone.

Edon Near: so attested in the 1850 federal census. (Note however that the entry is actually indexed as ’Eden Near’.)

Eaton Neer: so attested in the 1870 federal census (mis-indexed as ’Nees’).

His birth and early life

Eden's birthdate is not certain. A birth on December 15, 1807 can be obtained by counting backwards from his age as given at death on his tombstone in 1890. It is contradicted by the evidence of the 1860 federal census, which gives his age as 59. But the 1850 federal census appears to give his age as 40. If both numbers are accurately read, his age must have been misreported in at least one instance. Eden was born in Virginia, and would have been in the wave of Neer families that left Virginia for Ohio in the mid to late 1810s, when he was most likely less than 10 years old.

His first marriage

1831: Eden married at least twice, first to Marabah or Mary B. (Beth?) Thompson. They married on September 25, 1831, in Portage, Ohio, which is the second county west of the Pennsylvania border. She was the mother of, consecutively, Henry, Lewis, Uriah, and John, born circa 1835, 1836, 1838 and 1838 respectively.

Henry Neer was born circa 1835.

Lewis Neer was born circa 1836. This may be the same Lewis Neer reported as killed in the Civil War on March 18, 1862, at Savannah, Tennessee (Williams County Roll of Honor).

Uriah Neer was born circa 1838 and died in 1895 in Kendallville, Indiana at age 57.

John Neer was born circa 1838.

Early economic records

1837: The U.S. General Land Office Records (certificate number 6318) record a sale on March 18 of 1937, to "Eden Neer of Columbiana County Ohio" of 160 acres of land in a sale registered in Lima, Ohio. In the following month, on April 20, he purchased 80 acres of land in a sale (certificate number 15140) registered in Bucyrus, Wyandot Co., Ohio.

Columbiana County is in the far northeastern part of the state, on the Pennsylvania border. Wyandot County is in the mid-western portion of Ohio. Lima is on the opposite side of the state, one county away from the Indiana border.

1830s & 1840s: Eden’s son Uriah’s obituary (Kendallville, Indiana, April 26, 1895) helps provide details of this period. After the land sales in 1837, the family appears in Portage County, where Uriah was born in 1838. According to the obituary, the family moved to Williams County (the most northwestern county in Ohio) in 1843/4, where they stayed at least until the census of 1860. The obituary’s statement that Uriah was survived by four brothers is a puzzle. Presumably, these four brothers were all half-brothers, as his three full brothers are, I assume, the ones who died in the Civil War. Uriah, however, had six half-brothers, which means that two of them must have died by 1895.

His second marriage

1838-1845: By 1860, and presumably prior to Walter Neer’s birth circa 1845, Eden had must have married Phoebe (Hammon? Fritz?). She was the only woman in Eden Neer's household in July 1860 according to the Williams Co., OH, census, where she is listed as aged 40, born in Pennsylvania in 1820. Presumably, all of the minor-aged children appearing in that census entry are children of Eden and Phebe.

The minor-aged children appearing in that census entry (indexed under "Eden Nier") were:

Walter Neer, born circa 1845;

Adam Neer, born circa 1847 (this may be the same Adam Neer recorded as killed in the Civil War near Atlanta, Georgia, on August 7, 1864, according to the Williams County Roll of Honor);

Hiram Neer, born circa 1848;

Emery Neer, born circa 1850;

George Neer, born circa 1852;

Sarah Neer, born circa 1853; and

our ancestor Oliver Lee Neer, born in 1858. I once believed Seba Trugan (listed in Oliver Lee Neer’s death certificate as his mother) and born in Ohio, to have been Eden’s wife, and that she died by the July 1860 census entry. I now think this was a phantom marriage.

Later economic records

1850: Eden appears in the 1850 census with a $1700 real estate value. This amount has doubled to $3500 in the 1860 census. Peggy has provided a transcription from this period, duplicated below, of an entry for Eden Neer from Jacob Neihardt’s Account Book:

August the 13th AD 1850

August 13th Eden Neer Dr.

To helping to thrash 0.75

To having the horses to thrash .50

.25

1860: According to the Williams Co., Ohio 1860 Federal Census records, between his land sales in 1837 and the census in 1860, he had eight children, including Uriah (born 1838) and Oliver (born 1858).

1870: He is listed as "Eaton" in the 1870 federal census. In the 1870 census Eden’s wife is spelled "Phebe", and listed there as "keeping house". She died two years later. Therein, Eden’s property value is listed as $6000. They are living in Center Township, Williams County.

1871: According to the "County of Williams, Ohio, Historical and Biographical," (Goodspeed and Blanchard, eds., Chicago, 1882), "In October, 1871, Eden Neer laid out an addition to Melbern, consisting of three lots on the south side of the railroad, and on the west side of the wagon road."

1874: His land in Centre Township, Williams Co., can be found in the map included in the Illustrated History Atlas of Williams Co. OH, published by Andreas and Buskin, Chicago, IL, 1874, wherein his name is spelled "Near."

1880: The non-population schedule of the U.S. Federal Census records "Eden Neer" in Center Township, Williams County, as the owner of 100 tilled acres, 3 acres in the category of "Permanent meadows, permanent pastures, orchards, vineyards," 50 acres of woodland and forest, and 10 other acres. The value of his farm is $4500 and the value of his livestock $214. The estimated value of his farm production for 1879 is given as $652.

His death

Prior to his death, Eden must have gone to Kendallville, Indiana, the second county west into Indiana from Williams County, Ohio. His son Uriah had been there since at least 1870, when he appears there in the federal census. Presumably, Eden went to stay with Uriah between 1880 and 1890.

Eden died April 17, 1890. His death is mentioned on page 4 of the Bryan Democrat, and in the Kendallville Standard. The Bryan Democrat entry reads: "Eden Neer who formerly owned a farm and lived on it near Melborn died at Kendallville Friday. The remains were brought here Saturday afternoon. The funeral took place Sunday from the residence of Mr. Hannum, and the remains were buried in the cemetery at the Lick Creek church." (For Melborn, read Melbern, Ohio, an unincorporated community in Center Township, Williams County, the birthplace of Oliver Lee Neer. See map above.)

According to Eden’s second obituary, "He had four sons in the Union army during the war of the Rebellion, three of whom were sacrificed on their country’s altar… Another of the pioneers has gone."

Kendallville is in Indiana, so he must have been taken back to Lick Creek Cemetery after he died. Eden’s gravestone in Lick Creek Cemetery, Williams Co., OH, reads: "Neer Eden d. Apr. 11, 1890, ae 82y, 3m, 26d." Next to him are: "Nier [?] Sarah M., w/o ___ d. Apr. ,. 186_ ae 41 y __m 23 ds" (with the stone described as being flat on the ground and covered with grass, almost unreadable) and "Neer Phebe, w/o Edon Neer, d. Sept. 15, 1872, ae 50 yrs, 8m, 29 d." (The source for these readings is the Center Township Williams County, Ohio Cemetery Records volume published by the Williams County Genealogical Society in 1992.)

His ancestors

Proving the identity of Eden’s parents has been so far impossible. We know only that he was born in Virginia, and presume him to be part of the Loudoun County Neer family which moved from Virginia to Ohio in the 1810s. He is therefore presumably descended from Conrad Neer (born in Germany in 1710), but through which of his sons and grandsons? Since all possible lines seem to go through one of three daughters of David Potts and Ann Roberts, we might also consider Eden Neer to be a descendant of the Potts line.

The following pieces to the puzzle might help:

Since Eden’s funeral took place at the resident of Mr. Hannum (see below), Eden might be taken as the brother of the Nancy Neer who married Mr. Hannum. Emails in Vicky Toler’s collection assert that explicit evidence exists for the fact that they are siblings, but I cannot tell what this evidence is. Nancy’s parents are known from the "County of Williams" history to be John and Sarah Neer, born in Virginia, who settled in Trumbull County in the fall of 1815. This John could be taken as the son of Henry Neer and Susannah Potts were it not for the fact that John supposedly stayed in Virginia. I have in this tree attached Eden to John Neer, son of Henry Neer and Susannah Potts, merely for sake of convenience, to link him in some way to his putative ancestors as explained above. His parents and grandparents must still be considered unproven.

One further line of possible research is through Samuel J. Neer, born in Urbana Ohio on February 8, 1855, of Joseph Neer and Margaret S. Monroe, the former of whom was born in Virginia. Samuel died in Phoenix Arizona on June 1, 1931. As a piece of wild speculation, since the only other Neers I have found in Arizona are Oliver Lee Neer and descendants, I wonder whether Samuel might not be a cousin of his.