Jaqua Family

History traditionally preserves only the unusual. Accounts of people who have risen above their fellow citizens by their accomplishments have been permanently recorded by historians throughout our nation. This volume, along with the first two volumes, has given the common people as well as the distinguished, their chance to be included in the rich heritage of Henry County, respectable men and women who worked throughout their lives to build a bright future for their families and descendants. The Jaqua family in Henry County is honored to be included among their neighbors in telling their story of how they came to be here.

The first Jaqua to purchase land in Henry County was Seth, eldest son of Colonel Richard Jaqua of Eden Township, Seneca County, Ohio. Seth came to Henry County in 1846, and on April 20, 1848, at the age of twenty-nine years Seth purchased the west half of the southwest quarter in Section 17, township 6, range 7, Liberty Township, consisting of eighty acres, from the State of Ohio for $80.40. Seth was a millwright by trade and never married. On September 19, 1851, he sold his eighty acres to John Sturdavant and Warren Sturdavant of Marion County, Ohio, for the sum of $250.

On July 9, 1852, Seth purchased eighty acres from John P. Knapp for $150. This land was located in the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 30, and the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of section 30, township 6, range 7 east. He later sold this land and purchased ten acres from Robert Babcock for $50, located in the northeast corner of the east part of the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 30, township 6, north range 7 east.

Seth Jaqua was born in 1819 in Orleans County, New York. On the 1860 Census it shows Seth living in with his younger brother, John Curtis Jaqua, who was the second in the family to settle in Henry County.

Seth was employed at Theisen and Hildred Lumber Yard in his later years as a cabinet maker. He was a member of Napoleon Masonic Lodge No. 256. The lodge was chartered October 25, 1855, and Seth served as secretary of the lodge in 1888. He lived in a rooming house in Napoleon at the time of his death on March 21, 1895. Seth owned no real estate and his total estate was $287. The undertaker was B. B. Bitzer, and the sermon was preached by J. Williams, and internment was at Forest Hill Cemetery, Napoleon, Ohio. Seth's monument is a beautiful, large, polished gray stone by J.L. Halter, with the Masonic emblem carved in it, at a recorded cost of $175, in 1895. He was buried by his Masonic Lodge. No photograph of our family's first pioneer to Henry County has survived and what little we know of his life has been obtained frcm courthouse and scant family records.

John Curtis Jaqua, younger brother of Seth and the second son of Colonel Richard and Elizabeth Wiltse Jaqua, of Eden township, Seneca county, Ohio, was born on August 20, 1820, in the town of Gaines, Gennesee County, New York. He removed to Seneca County, Ohio, with his parents in 1822. He was raised on his father's farm and in his early manhood learned the carpenter and joiner trade. John C. courted and married a Wyandot County girl, Emily Jane, daughter of John Rodolph and Jan Fredenberg Marguerat. Emily was born on June 29, 1830, in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. The date of their marriage is recorded February 7, 1848, at the Upper Sandusky, Ohio, courthouse by Benjamin Knapp, J.P. On June 10, 1849, John purchased eighty acres of timberland from the state, located in section 19, Liberty Township, Henry County, Ohio, for one dollar and one half cent per acre.

In the fall of 1849, John and Emily with infant son, Frank, bade farewell to family and neighbors in Seneca County and the creaking of their wagon wheels behind the team of horses was no doubt a constant reminder to young Emily that she was leaving her family permanently to become isolated in a distant swampland full of discomfort and hardship. It would be extremely interesting to read a diary kept by those young pioneers; accounts of what went through their minds on a daily basis. Unfortunately the Jaqua's kept no diary, but many accounts of the true stories told by Emily to her children have been recorded.

When they reached the Maumee River, they had to cross it with their wagon and team, then drive from Napoleon north five miles over a crude wagon trail full of tree stumps. Their wagon was the second to pass over this trail which was almost entirely darkened by tall timber the entire distance. Winter set in before they could raise a cabin and the Horace Hudson family kindly took them in until spring.

Upon the arrival of spring in 1850, John Curtis built a log house on a slight rise of ground, about forty rods northeast of where the house now stands. The water supply was obtained by digging a hole and placing a hollow sycamore log, or "gum" as it was commonly called, in the hole to prevent the dirt from caving in. The gum then filled with surface water which was used for drinking, cooking and laundry. It was located about sixty rods from the cabin near the creek. When Emily went for water she locked her young children in the cabin and hurried to the gum and returned as soon as possible. Many times when she was milking she was frightened into the cabin by wolves, as they had no barn and milked the cows in the woods.

John Curtis was absent from home a great deal with his carpenter trade. He built the first frame schoolhouse in Liberty Township, district no. 9, and numerous barns in the neighborhood. Emily's nearest neighbor was a half mile through the forest. John Curtis finally raised a log barn, the only one in the vicinity with a wooden floor. The neighbors brought their grain to be threshed by this method. Bundles of grain to be threshed were placed in a circle on the barn floor, then a horse was ridden around and around over the straw until all the grain was shaken out. Then the straw was removed, the grain scooped up, and the chaff blown away by some kind of fan in use at that time. John C. built an English style frame barn on the farm about 1860.

In 1869 and 1870, he was the Democratic sheriff of Henry County. He was a member of the Napoleon Masonic Lodge No. 256 in Napoleon from October 15, 1856 until his death on November 11, 1871. He is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery. A fine, shoulder high monument with a Masonic emblem carved in it marks his grave.

In 1873, his widow, Emily, built a new two-story frame house twenty by thirty feet in size from timber sawed on the Jaqua farm, replacing the log house.

The following children were born to John Curtis and Emily Jaqua: Frank was born on December 3, 1848; Seth was born on March 8, 1851; Richard was born on April 1, 1853, and died in infancy; Randolph was born on January 23, 1855; Jeanette was born on August 11, 1859; Hettie was born on August 10, 1864; Alta was born on June 25, 1869; and John Charles was born on April 25, 1872.

In 1893, John's son, Randolph, bought out his brothers and sisters and became the second owner of the Jaqua farm. On June 25, 1896, Randolph married Mary, daughter of William Spengler (who was a tailor by trade,) and Agusta Spengler.

Mary was born on January 17, 1861, in Liecterfeldy, Germany. She arrived at New York in September, 1865, with her parents and three brothers after a seven week trip on a sailing ship. She joined Randolph on the farm and to this union three children were born: William Arthur was born on October 29, 1897; Edna Gertrude was born on May 10, 1900; and Charles Randolph was born on May 19, 1903.

In 1913, Mary came into a large inheritance from her brother, William, and in 1918 she built a new two story, five bedroom frame house on the farm that was forty by thirty feet in size. The cost was $4,000. Randolph hauled all the lumber and brick from Napoleon in his wagon, as they did not deliver in those days. He made many, many trips. The 'old house' as it has always been referred to, was moved back and the 1918 house was built in the same location.

John C.'s widow, Emily, died on the farm on February 3, 1922, at the age of ninety-one years, seven months and five days. She is buried with her husband at Forest Hill Cemetery. Emily out-lived her husband by more than fifty years. Randolph died on January 17, 1951, on the farm and his widow, Mary Spengler Jaqua, died on March 23, 1961. They are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery.

Arthur then bought out his brother and sister and became the third generation to own and farm the Jaqua homestead. Arthur married Mildred Leona, daughter of Charles C. and Mable L. Kinney King, of Henry County, on December 25, 1931. From this union were born Calvin Luther on August 5, 1933, and Joyce Arlene on November 19, 1940. Arthur is now eighty years old and still farms the land that his grandfather, John Curtis, purchased in the summer of 1849. He has lived on the farm all of his eighty years, and his father, Randolph, lived his entire ninety-six years on the Jaqua farm.

Arthur's son, Calvin Jaqua, will be the fourth generation to own and farm the land. Calvin presently lived in Napoleon, Ohio.

Submitted by: John Philip Jaqua