Brokaw, Andrew J.

BROKAW, STRYKER, BUSH, SLACK, SPRACKLEN, BARR, BRACKENRIDGE, LAMBERT, BIRD, GEARHART, BISHOP, NICHOLS, MORTON, TRUSSEL, HELPHREY, JOHNSON, MC ILLECE, TRUMAN, TAYLOR

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/27/2009 at 11:19:28

Brokaw, Andrew J.

Abram Brokaw, the grandfather of the subject, was born in New Jersey in 1773 the son of Caleb Brokaw, who was a lieutenant in the War of the Revolution, and a brother of Caleb, named Isaac, served as private in the Revolutionary War. Abram Brokaw was married to Mariah Stryker, a native of New Jersey, in the year 1791 and to them were born fifteen children. In the year 1822 the family removed from New Jersey to Ohio and settled in Jefferson County, that state, and there Abram Brokaw departed this life in the year 1826.

John A. Brokaw, the father of Andrew J., was the seventh child born to Abram and Mariah Brokaw, and was born July 4, 1804. At the age of seventeen he learned the shoemaker's trade and began working for himself. When the family moved to Ohio, he went with them, but eighteen months later he went back to New Jersey. A year later he returned again to Ohio and remained there until after the death of his father, when he took his mother and went back to New Jersey. Upon this trip he married Caroline Bush, a native of New Jersey, having been born in that state on June 20, 1809. In 1831 John Brokaw took his wife and family, consisting at that time of two children, and again removed to Jefferson County, Ohio, but one year later he moved to Knox County, in the same state, and there he remained, working at his trade and farming until his death, which occurred on January 17, 1893, at the venerable age of eighty-nine. At the time he arrived in Knox County, his entire worldly possessions consisted of one horse and a wagon and three dollars and twelve and one-half cents in money. By industry and thrift he acquired quite a handsome competence.

His wife, Caroline Brokaw, the mother of Andrew, died at Mt. Liberty, Knox County, Ohio, in 1878. This couple were the parents of thirteen children, as follows: Sarah, born in 1829, died in 1852, was the wife of Henry Slack; Maria was the wife of Peter Spracklen, born February 21, 1831, died 1855; Effa, born February 26, 1833, married George Barr in 1853, and is now living at Manilla, Crawford County, Iowa, her husband being deceased; Elizabeth, wife of D. L. Brackenridge, was born in November 1834 and died in Tama county, Iowa, December 23, 1872; a daughter, born January 25, 1837, died in infancy; Phoebe A., born June 17, 1838, married Frank Lambert in 1859, and lives in Manilla, Crawford County, Iowa; Caroline, born January 27, 1842, married John Bird, September 7, 1865, and lives at Mt. Vernon, Knox County, Ohio; Mary L., born in February 1843; married Smith Gearhart in 1865, and lives at Mt. Liberty, Knox County, Ohio; Andrew J., the subject of this review, born June 6, 1845; William B., born August 8, 1847, lives in Richland County, Ohio; Abraham G., born February 4, 1850, lives in Manilla, Crawford County, Iowa; John B., born July 25, 1852, lives at Hollywood, California, has a real estate business in Los Angeles, that state; Marcus, born July 8, 1855 died in infancy.

Andrew J. Brokaw, who was the ninth child born to John and Caroline Brokaw, received his early educational training, mainly in the country schools in Knox County, Ohio. At the age of twenty-two he started out to work for himself, and a few years later, 1870, he came to Jasper County, Iowa, and worked as a farm hand around at different places, making his home the meanwhile with a sister, Phoebe Lambert, at that time living on a farm in Newton Township, this county. For a little over four years he continued working thus, at which time he was united in marriage with Mrs. Elizabeth Bishop, who was the widow of Miles S. Bishop and the daughter of Marcus A. and Lydia (Nichols) Morton, her father being a native of Massachusetts, born at Middlebury, that state, and her mother a native of Vermont, born at Wellford, that state. The family came from Massachusetts in the year 1832 to Licking County, Ohio, and settled on a farm not far from Granville, that state. Here they lived until the year 1848, when they removed to Wood County, in the same state, where they engaged in agricultural pursuits until the death of the husband and father, which occurred on December 18, 1855. The next year, the family, consisting of the mother and children, came to Iowa, and purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land just north of Newton, in Newton Township, in the neighborhood of Farmer College. Here the mother departed this life on October 14, 1860.

There were ten children in this family, as follows: George, born November 7, 1830, lives in Wood County, Ohio; William W., born May 22, 1832, died May 19, 1901, at Newton, leaving a family of three children. He owned a feed yard, the first one of its kind established in Newton, where Simpson's feed yard is now located; Hiram M., born January 8, 1834, died at Winterset, Iowa, in 1875, leaving four children; Sarah, wife of George Bacon, was born December 18, 1836, lives at Horton, Kansas; Elizabeth, wife of Andrew J. Brokaw, was born November 1, 1838; Silas W., born April 21, 1840, died in 1906 at Council Bluffs, Iowa, leaving two children; Elias A. died in infancy; Lydia E., born December 9, 1844, married James Trussel, and died in 1865, leaving five children; Julia, born September 4, 1846, wife of Thomas Helphrey, lives in Chicago; Mattie, wife of John B. Johnson, was born April 22, 1848, died at Council Bluffs, Iowa, March 12, 1880, leaving three children.

At the time the Morton family came to and located at Farmer College the country was very sparsely settled, there being only three houses between their place and the village of Newton. In 1859 Elizabeth Morton married Miles L. Bishop, a young farmer, who died in 1870, leaving her with five small children, namely: Eva, born November 12, 1860, is the wife of John Mc Illece, and lives in Webster County, Nebraska, where they own a farm of three hundred and twenty acres; George M. and Charlie, twins, born June 5, 1862. George lives in Scott County, Iowa, and Charlie lives at Baxter, Iowa, where he is engaged in business. He also owns land in North Dakota; Hattie L., born June 7, 1864, married Frank Truman, lives at Lemoyne, Wood County, Ohio; Delbert E., born July 20, 1866, lives in Des Moines, Iowa.

On February 2, 1875, Mrs. Bishop married Andrew J. Brokaw, and to them were born three children, namely: Mina, born March 7, 1877, married Charles Earl in 1899, lives in Rock Island, Illinois; J. A., born December 8, 1880, married Ethel Taylor December 9, 1907, lives at Newton, Iowa, and a boy who died in infancy.

In 1901 Mr. and Mrs. Brokaw sold the home farm, where she had lived since a girl for over forty years, and purchased property in Newton. Their home is located in the southeast part of the city, where they have three acres of land. They also own a small tract of timber land in Kellogg Township. Mr. Brokaw retired from active life when he left the farm in 1901. His family is of French extraction, while Mrs. Brokaw is of Scotch descent on her mother's side and English on her father's. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Newton, active and zealous in all the branches of that institution. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 460.