Guy Vernon Newcomer (1879 - 1940)

OBITUARY

Guy Vernon Newcomer was born August 17, 1879 near Wauseon, Ohio, the son of George D. and Melinda Newcomer.

In 1901 he was married to Miss Sadie Gray of Fayette, O. To this union were born five children. The first ten years they made their home near Wauseon. In December 1910 they moved to the present home near Waldron, Mich.

He was an active member in the Masonic lodge and for four years was worshipful master of Leonard lodge No. 266, F. & A. M. At the time of his death he was a member of the school board of the White district.

After an illness of several months, he passed away Tuesday, May 7, 1940, age 60 years.

Survivng him are his widow, five children, Mrs. Clare Merrifield, Montpelier, Ohio; Mrs. Nathan McCully of Midland, Mich.; Mrs. Lawerence Ruffer of Waldron and Rex and June at home; two sisters, Mrs. E. C. Lee of Waldron and Mrs. Clare Tedrow of Delta, O., and nine grand children and many friends.

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CARD OF THANKS

Words fail to convey our appreciation of the many beautiful things done for us by our friends in this our last sorrow.

Mrs. Guy Newcomer and family.
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This obituary of my Grandfather was transcribed from a copy my sister Carol sent me. There is no indication on that copy of which newspaper the obituary was originally published in. The Card of Thanks did appear under the obituary. Grandpa's mother was Melinda (Mikesell) Newcomer. It is through Melinda that our line of Newcomer is connected to the Mikesell and Bayes families.

Answering His Country's Call: George D. Newcomer

George Debolt Newcomer was born April 15, 1844 in Holmes Co., Ohio. When George was only a few weeks old, his parents, John & Naomi (Debolt) Newcomer, moved to what is now Fulton Co., Ohio, and settled on land that is now part of the City of Wauseon. It was in this context of a pioneer family of the Old Black Swamp that George grew to manhood.

On April 12, 1861, just before George's seventeenth birthday, Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter. The next year, on May 28, 1862, at the age of 18, George enlisted in the Ohio Infantry 85th Regiment, Co. G, for a 3 month enlistment. This organization never reached full regimental status, and from time to time different parts of the regiment were detailed to other units. What existed of the regiment did guard duty at the prisoner of war camp compound at Camp Chase, near Columbus, Ohio.

We have a record of George transferring from the Ohio 85th to the Ohio 87th Infantry, Co. D, in June 1862. George may have latter regretted that transfer. The Ohio 87th was at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia when General Stonewall Jackson (CSA) came to visit in September 1882. The Confederate troops commanded the heights around the town, and the Union troops were soon forced to surrender. George was now a prisoner of war. At this point in the Civil War, prisoner exchanges were more common then in the latter part of the war. A day or two latter George was among those exchanged. It also helped that the term of enlistment for the 87th Regiment had already expired. I always joke with my friends that George had been a "guest" of Stonewall Jackson's for a day.

This event may have been the seed of an erroneous family story from my boyhood. The story was that George had been a prisoner of war and keep at the infamous Andersonville Confederate prison in Georgia. He did do prison camp duty at Camp Chase while with the 85th. He was a prisoner of war at Harper's Ferry, but not detained.

On June 16, 1863, about 8 months after mustering out of the 87th, George signed up for a 6 month enlistment with the Ohio 86th, Co. H. At that time the Confederate Brigadier General John Morgan was raiding through the southern parts of Indiana and Ohio. Under the command of Colonel Wilson C. Lemert, the 86th took part in the pursuit of Morgan.

Co. H of the 86th O.V.I. was from Fulton Co. One of the men in the 86th O.V.I. from the Fulton County area was Thomas Mikesell, son of William and Margaret (Bayes) Mikesell. Thomas had a first cousin, Malinda, that was to become George D. Newcomer's second wife, and mother of Guy Vernon Newcomer, my Grandfather. Another Fulton Co. pioneer family represented in Co. H was the Bayes family.

After Morgan's capture, the 86th was sent to Cumberland Gap as part of a Union force to take control of the Gap from the Confederates. At that time 3,000 Confederate prisoners were taken. The 86th stayed at Cumberland Gap for the remainder of its enlistment time. George mustered out in February 1864. We went through Cumberland Gap in 1993. At the Cumberland Gap National Park, you can still see some of the old gun emplacements up on the mountain. It is a very beautiful spot.

On August 12, 1864, we find George enlisting in the Ohio 182nd, Co. B. for a 1 year enlistment. While in the 182nd he reached the rank of Sergeant by appointment of Col. Lewis Butler on October 27, 1864, and in May 1865 reached the rank of 1st Sergeant.

It was in this regiment that George took part in one of most significant events of his military career. In November 1864, the 182nd was sent to Nashville, Tennessee where Major General George Thomas (USA) was waiting for General John Bell Hood (CSA) to come calling. General Hood was desperate. He wanted to divert Sherman's attention from his march through Georgia to the sea. Hood wanted to bust through Thomas' forces to the Ohio River, then swing east to join up with a beleaguered General Robert E. Lee in Virginia.

In the meantime, Thomas, who happened to be from Virginia, but was a staunch Unionist, was coldly calculating the destruction of Hood's army. General Sherman had confidence in Thomas, but President Lincoln and General Grant were less sure. Thomas wanted more mounted units, and was scrounging the country side for horses. Hood kept coming on, even after being mauled at the battle of Franklin and letting Schofield get away to join up with Thomas at Nashville.

Then the weather turned bad. There was an ice storm. Further delay on Thomas' part caused Grant to seriously consider replacing him. In fact the orders for doing so were on the way when on December 15, Thomas loosed the Union forces on the Confederate positions. The result was what General Sherman called the most decisive battle in the whole war. Union forces opened the battle with an attack on the Confederate right wing. The main Union assault was then made on the Confederate left flank, and it was there that the Confederates were overpowered and routed from the field. Hood's Army disintegrated under the Union onslaught. What was left of it was sent staggering back to Alabama with Union troops in hot pursuit. The Confederate Army of Tennessee ceased to exist. Hood tendered his resignation, and Thomas' place in history was secured.

Sgt. George Debolt Newcomer was there. We are told concerning the 182nd that, "The 182nd took a prominent part in the ensuing battle of Nashville, and behaved handsomely. It did not participate in the pursuit of the enemy, but was retained in Nashville, where it performed guard and provost duty up to the 7th of July, 1865." (Ohio In The Civil War, Larry Stevens' Internet WWW pages). It is not entirely clear to me if the 182nd actually faced the enemy under fire.

In my mind, George stands out among our ancestors. He was a participant in one of the most momentous, watershed events in the history of our nation. What did the young Northwestern Ohio farm boy think of when he heard about the slavery and states rights debate? News of events such as the Lincoln - Douglas debates, the Dred Scott decision, and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, with the aid of the telegraph, would have gone all over the country in only a few days. How much of his perspective came from his Methodist upbringing? Did he go to war out of a sense of patriotism and concern for the Union, or was it more of a chance for a farm boy to get away from home and see some of the world? Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no surviving letters to home, or recorded memoirs. What a find for our family if such were to be found.

George DeBolt Newcomer went home and farmed. December 28, 1869 he was married to Clara Poorman. The fruit of this union was one son, Frank Melvin, born Oct. 28, 1870. Clara died May 6, 1875.

On December 19, 1875, George married Malinda Mikesell, daughter of Adam and Mary (Jones) Mikesell. The children from this marriage were; Susie Ethel, born Sept. 24, 1878, Guy Vernon, born Aug. 17, 1879, and Mary I., born July 6, 1886.

George was active in his community as well. He was a Fulton County Commissioner for seven years, and also served as a trustee for Clinton Twp. He was active in the Grand Army of the Republic, Masons, and from 1890 to his death was member of the Episcopal Methodist Church. He passed away on November 3, 1931. The Wauseon Republican announced his passing in a front page article titled:

UNCLE GEORGE
Fine Pioneer, Brave Soldier
Kind Citizen Dead
Faithful Public Official

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Bibliography

History of Fulton County (Ohio); Vol. I; Frank H. Reighard, Editor; Lewis Publishing Co., NY; (1920); photocopy of pages 203-205

Family Records Found in the Family Bible of John Newcomer (1809 - 1890); A two volume set of the "Cottage Bible" owned by John Newcomer & his descendants.

National Archive Records of George Debolt Newcomer, collected and copied by John M. Newcomer, Great grandson of George D. Newcomer.

Synopsis of Regimental histories of the Ohio units were taken from Larry Stevens' Internet WWW pages Ohio in the Civil War (http://www.ohiocivilwar.com/)

Local men who fought in early American Wars ; "Digging for your roots"; Jana Sloan Broglin; The Toledo Blade; May 1997; Toledo, Ohio

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years And the War Years, Carl Sandburg, Reader's Digest, 1970

Obituary of George D. Newcomer; Wauseon Republican; November 6, 1931; Wauseon, Ohio

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Compiled and written by Bill Newcomer, great-grandson of George D. Newcomer, October, A.D. 1997. Copyright © 1997 by J. William Newcomer. All rights reserved.

Pioneer Family of the Old Black Swamp: John & Naomi Newcomer

The following material was transcribed from: History of Fulton County (Ohio); Vol I; Frank H. Reighard, Editor; Lewis Publishing Co., NY; (1920); pages 203-205. The second part of this page contains information on the Black Swamp area of Northwest Ohio which includes Fulton County.

[Editor's note: In this first part, I added some extra paragraph breaks for easier reading, and corrected a few spelling errors. I also added in a few notes enclosed in "[ ]"'s.]

This narrative starts on the bottom half of page 203.

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John Newcomer and family came in 1844, and settled upon land which latter, as Newcomer's Addition, came within the boundaries of the village of Wauseon. The Newcomers were typical pioneers. John, son of Jacob, and grandson of Ulrich, was born in 1807, states the family genealogy. He married Naomi Debolt in 1831; moved to Holmes county, Ohio in 1837; and in 1844 moved "to the unsettled regions of Western Ohio, and settled in what was then Lucas, but now is Fulton county, and carved out a home from the forests where afterwards was located the town of Wauseon." He died in Wauseon fifty-six years latter, and an obituary gives the following information:

"In the early spring of 1844 he came west, purchased 160 acres of wild land where now (1890) is embraced Newcomer's Addition to Wauseon, and the Northwestern Fair Grounds, and before returning to his eastern home let a contract to clear off 3 acres of ground across the street and in front of his late residence.

In May, 1844, he loaded up a wagon with household effects, and left Holmes county for the new home in the west. The cavalcade consisted of: a covered wagon, pulled by two horses; one extra saddle horse; two cows; two or three head of young heifers; eight or ten head of sheep; father, mother, four children (one a babe of four weeks) and three other people. The trip was made in nine days."

George D. Newcomer, who is still living in Wauseon, was the babe of four weeks of that trip. He says that his mother rode the saddle horse, and presumably carried him also. The eldest of the four children was Solomen, then twelve years old. The two elder boys and their sister made the journey on foot driving the cattle and sheep. The obituary of John Newcomer continues:

"The day after that on which they landed at the William Bayes homestead, Father Newcomer and his two boys, armed with axes, grubbing hoes, and strong will, blazed a way through the wood... and in two days a quarter of an acre was cleared off. In less then three weeks a cabin with 'puncheon floor' was ready for occupancy."

John Newcomer's first log cabin was of round logs, but later he built a large hewn-log house, of two floors. That house was a stopping place for travelers. George D. Newcomer says that when the railroad was being built in 1853-54, they often had forty or fifty boarders all of whom would sleep in the one large upstairs room, sleeping on the floor, and arranging themselves as well as they could around the room, "feet to the center." The small log house was then used as a dining room. The cooking was all done on a spit, before an old-fashioned fireplace.

John Newcomer had a good part in the development of Clinton Township and of Wauseon. He held several local offices, and for nine years was a justice of the peace. "He took a leading part in the erection of the church (Methodist Episcopal) at Wauseon", and was "the first Mason made by Wauseon Lodge, on its organization, 1864."

(Newcomer Plot, Union Cem.
Wauseon, Ohio)

The golden anniversary of the wedding of John and Naomi Newcomer was held in 1881, and on that day 175 friends, most of whom were prominent residents of Fulton county, called to pay "their respects to Uncle John and his bride of fifty years ago." Mrs. Newcomer died five years later, aged seventy-two years, having lived long enough to see a remarkable change take place in the locality to which they had come in 1844.

Of their children, Solomen went to Nebraska in 1856, and in the next fifty years only visited Wauseon twice, once to attend his parent's golden wedding anniversary, and the last time in 1912. He died in Wauseon on this second visit. His life had been an adventurous one, "gold prospecting, and fighting Indians, carrying United States mails, on snowshoes over mountains and barren wastes." In his last years he lived in Idaho.

Anna, or Hester Ann, was born in Clinton Township on February 28, 1846, and was, it seems, the first white child born in what now is within the corporate limits of Wauseon. She married Wesley A. Blake, and in the marital state lived almost fifty years, her death occurring in 1913, just three weeks short of what would have been their golden wedding celebration. She was a staunch Methodist, like her mother, and was an ardent church worker.

George D. , the only surviving child of John and Naomi Newcomer still lives in Wauseon, much respected. His life record has been good. He enlisted in the spring of 1862, and discharged at the end of the war, his service including a brief term as a Confederate prisoner [Harpers Ferry, 1862]. During his life George D. Newcomer has taken useful part in Wauseon and county affairs; he was trustee of the township for six years, and for three terms was a commissioner of Fulton County. [George D. Newcomer died on November 3, 1931 in Wauseon, Ohio.]

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Note on The Black Swamp Area of Northwest Ohio

In the book Heritage of the Black Swamp (compiled and written by Cynthia Harger and Norma Snyder on behalf of the Sauder Museum, Archbold, Ohio; 1978), Erie Sauder gives a description of that area west of Sandusky and north of the Maumee River, of which Fulton County is a part. At the time of the early settlement of the area in the mid 1830's it was "..over 2,000 square miles of flat, swampy, unhealthy land..." It was not until the 1850's that a massive drainage project made the place more hospitable, (and some of the richest farmland in the nation). It was the swamp that made this land so cheap that the poorer immigrants found their home here.

Harger and Snyder go on to relate more about the hard times the Black Swamp settlers faced, wolves, floods, hard back breaking work to carve out a home in the wilderness of Northwest Ohio. This is the area John and Naomi Newcomer brought their family to in 1844. They were indeed true pioneers.

Transcribed and edited by Bill Newcomer, great-grandson of George D. Newcomer, and great-great-grandson of John & Naomi Newcomer, December, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by J. William Newcomer. All rights reserved.