The Noah Jackson Family

Noah Jackson, the son of Rev. Joseph Jackson and Chloe Watson Jackson, was born January 31, 1820, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and came to Ohio with his parents in the spring of 1831. About 1835 or 1836 he returned to Pennsylvania to further his education, becoming a schoolmaster.

On November 19, 1849, Noah married Mary Ann Shively in Pennsylvania, who also was a school teacher. They settled in Philadelphia but after two years, Noah returned to Ohio.

In 1850 or 1851, he came to Harrison Township, Henry County, where he purchased a quarter section of land, paying nearly $6.00 an acre. It was a forbidding place; heavily forested, swampy and too tangled to ride a horse through. Noah was one of only six persons to occupy the township in 1851. He constructed a log house and cleared the land. It was a formidable task. Early accounts tell that the largest oak timbers were hauled by oxen to Turkeyfoot Creek, floated to the Maumee, and downstream to Grand Rapids where they were put in the canal, beginning a journey to England where they were used in ship construction.

Noah and Mary had seven children: Vernon, 1850-51; Frank, 1852-90; Ashley, 1854-1914; Willis, 1856-1946; Gratia, 1859-1937; Lincoln, 1861-1928 and Della M., 1863-1919.

Noah lived out his life on the farm he had made and when he died, July 20, 1887, he was buried beside his first born son, under a big beech tree in the woods south of his homestead.

Shortly after his death an assembly of his friends and neighbors, which included his son Willis, met at the Grelton M.E. Church and organized the Grelton Cemetery Association. Noah's widow, Mary Ann sold to this group, for a nominal fee, a small tract of their hard earned farm to serve as a community cemetery.

Mary Ann lived the remainder of her life with her son Willis and family on the homestead she helped build until her death in 1894.

Rev. Joseph Jackson, son of Daniel and Jemima Benjamin Jackson, was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, August 21, 1795. April 27, 1817, he married Chloe Watson, daughter of Amariah and Esther Franklin Watson.

Rev. Jackson came to Ohio in the spring of 1831 and settled in Seneca County purchasing a quarter section of land. He was a farmer and a Baptist preacher.

Early in 1860, Joseph retired from farming and moved to Napoleon, where he continued his ministry under the auspices of the Methodist Church. He purchased land along the river west of Napoleon. He built a house in Napoleon above the canal on the road to Maumee (now U.S. 424). The house stands today, about the fourth house west of the Municipal Water Plant -it has a pump at the door step.

He was four years old when President George Washington died and lived to see President Benjamin Harrison inaugurated. Rev. Joseph Jackson died February 12, 1892, aged 97 years, at Clyde, Ohio, and is buried in little Lowell Cemetery, Sececa County.

His children were: Lucy 1818-1852; Noah 1820-1887; Silas 1822-1851; Hannah 1825-18___; Elias D. 18281881; B. Franklin 1829-1863; Joel 18321903; Joseph 1832-1924; Betsy 18341835; Simon 1834; Mary Elizabeth 1836-1894; Amariah 1839. Joseph's fourth wife, Gracia Hatch, is buried in Glenwood Cemetery, Napoleon.

Willis Jackson, son of Noah and Mary Ann Shively Jackson was born on the Harrison Township farm September 11, 1856. Of all of Noah and Mary Jackson's children only Willis chose to remain in Henry County and on the Harrison Township farm which his parents made out of the wilderness.

On February 9, 1879, Willis married a neighbor girl, Jennie Hoppes, the daughter of Augustus and Lydia Gooding Hoppes and settled on the homestead, living out their lives there, with the exception of a brief time in Nebraska.

He was an officer of the Grelton Cemetery Association from the time of its organization until his death.

His life is best described by Raymond Meade who knew him all his life and wrote the following after his death - "What is a neighbor? He was one. Kindly, not self-seeking, happy in his family, home and community, he made a life that has touched all who lived near enough to him to know him." Willis Jackson died January 4, 1946, and is buried in the family plot in the Grelton Cemetery.

Willis and Jennie Jackson's children were: Wylie M., 1881-1955; Dick, 1883-1970; Bessie Lee, 1884-1894; Della Warner, 1887-1911; Mary Richard, 1889-1944; Atlee A., 1890-1959; all buried in the Grelton Cemetery.

The grandchildren of Willis and Jennie Jackson are: Willis E., Toledo, Ohio, Mrs. V. B. (Nelda) McMillen, Worthington, O.; James, Columbus, Ohio, children of Wylie Jackson; Mrs. Harold (Leota) Ward, Napoleon, Ohio, daughterof Della Jackson Warner; Mrs. Donald W. (Marjorie) Mansfield; Wylie F. 1914-1966; Mrs. Wm. C. (Jennie Lou) Reinking, Carroll, Ohio; and Neil A., Columbus, Ohio, children of Mary Jackson Richard; Mrs. Robert D. (Mary Alice) Beatty Jr., Birmingham, Ala.

Submitted by Mrs. Donald Mansfield