Henry Perry Bernthisel

Henry Bernthisel, a well-known pioneer agriculturist now residing at Haskins, was born in February 1820, in Perry County, Ohio. He is one of the few men now living with attended the great mass meeting at Fort Meigs in 1840, during the "hard cider and log cabin campaign."

His parents, Jacob and Jane Willey Bernthisel, were born in Pennsylvania, the father in the year 1784, the mother in 1772. They came to Ohio a few years after their marriage, and located first in Perry County, where they remained 15 years before finally settling in Wood County. They were the first to locate on the bank of Tontogany Creek, and the land on which they made their home was originally a swampy forest. Their goods, which they unloaded under a large white Oak tree, had been brought from Perry County with two teams, one of oxen, the other of horses. They were devote members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mrs. Bernthisel died November 11, 1857; Mr. Bernthisel on September 28, 1858. Nine children were born to them: Anna, deceased, the wife of James Bradley; Levi, who went to California, and was never heard from afterward; Jane, the wife of David Mardook, both now deceased; Sarah, the widow of Thomas Heflinger, of Scotland, Illinois; Henry; Parmelia, who married Daniel Blodgett, of Weston; Marianne, deceased wife of Charles Holloway; Susan, who died in infancy; and Isaac, who lives at Whitehall, Illinois.

Mr. Bernthisel was a boy when his parents came to this County, and his early schooling was obtained in a log cabin in his district. He worked for his father until he was 23, and then farm on shares for others some four years, after which he engaged in farming on his own account, buying some wild land at Haskins, which he cleared and improved. On May 23, 1844, he married miss Julia Ann Jenkins, who was born in Pennsylvania, in 1825, and died October 23, 1861. They had six children: Samuel, deceased in childhood. Nettie, who married David Bash and has three children – Willey, John, and Julia (of these, John is a schoolteacher at Dickey, and is married to Ida Robinson, by whom he has two children). Lottie married Joseph Garrett, of Bowling Green, and has two children living – Charles and Fray (Julia died when 12 years old). Ollie, who married Peter Panny, of Tontogany, and was murdered there in 1895. Wallace married Alice Ashley, and has five children – Willey, Willie, Floyd and Burnette., Living, and one that died in infancy; and Charles, who married miss Frankie Pitcher, and now lives at the old Homestead; they had three children – Henry, Electa, and Stella. After the death of the mother in 1861, Mr. Bernthisel married Mrs. Sarah Matilda Barnes Sargeant, widow of William Sargeant on Christmas Day 1861. Two children were born of this union, one of whom died in early childhood; Lillie, the survivor, is the wife of William Garrett, the adopted son of Elwood Garrett, they have one son, Ross. Henry's second wife died in 1883, and on August 14, 1883, he was married to Mrs. Emma J. Rigg, daughter of Clark and Elizabeth Stackhouse Chapman, natives of Vermont; the latter was of German descent and died in 1846, leaving five children. Mister Chapman, by trade a cabinetmaker, died in 1876. Emma J. Chapman was born in Seneca County, New York, January 26, 1840, and was quite young and she accompanied her parents to Ohio. By her first husband, Joseph Rigg, she had six children, named respectively: William, Hiram, Charles, Sherman, Alice, and Albert. Mister Rigg died in 1879.

About three years after his first marriage, Mr. Bernthisel left his old home and moved to a farm a half mile from Haskins, where he now owns 150 acres of land. In 1882 he retired into the village there to spent his declining years free from business cares. He owns an 80 acre farm on the river, 40 acres west of Haskins, besides a good home in the village and his old home above alluded to. In politics is a Democrat, as was his father before him, and has held some minor Township offices. Socially he is a member of the I.O.O.F., Roche-de-Boeuf Lodge o 530, Haskins, in which is passed most of the chairs, and he and his wife are affiliated with the Rebekah Lodge No. 387 , Haskins. In religious belief they are members of the Baptist Church at Haskins, with which organization he has been identified several years, and has served as trustee thereof.

Biographical Record of Wood County, Beers, 1897, P. 860-61