Daniel Levering

As printed in 1880

DANIEL LEVERING, farmer; P. O., Levering; is the representative of one of the oldest and most highly respected families in the township of Perry. A genealogical account of the Levering family, embracing 193 pages, was published in 1858, which gives an account of two brothers, Wigard and Gerhard Levering, who emigrated from Germany about 1685 and settled in Roxborough, Philadelphia Co., Pa. It is thought that their father, Rosier Levering, came from France, as the name has a French sound. This account includes ten generations, and up to 1858 enumerated 2,091 descendants of that name. Daniel Levering, son of Nathan and Mary (Kearney) Levering, was born May 9, 1833, on this farm, where he passed his boyhood and youth; attended school on the hill near by, about three months per year until he reached his majority, his first teacher being Charlotte Gregg. He then worked for his father until

1857, when he took a three months’ tour through the West, visiting various places of interest in Iowa and other States. He united in ' marriage with Sarah K. Iden, March 4,

1858. She was born July 31, 1833; her parents were both natives of Loudoun Co., Virginia. John Iden was born in 1806, and Dorcas Furr was born in 1812. They were married April 22, 1830, and emigrated to Knox Co., in 1835, where they lived three years, settling permanently in Congress Tp. of this county, where they raised a family of nine children: Martha J., Sarah K., George W., Francis M., John A., Susan E., Thomas T., Lovd D. and Melville M. After marriage Mr. Levering settled on a quarter section of land in Congress Tp., where he tilled the soil for eight years; then moved to an eighty-acre lot which he purchased in the same township; remaining here six and a half years, he sold out and purchased 130 acres of the old homestead, to which he came in 1873. He has cleared a portion of the place since then, realizing 100,000 feet of walnut lumber from the timber removed. They have” three children — Martha I. was born May 8, 1859; Clint, Sept. 12, 1863; Addie M., April 9, 1872. Daniel Levering, grandfather of our subject, came on horseback in 1812, and entered a half section of land, near the present site of Waterford, O.; he then went back to Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1813, he and a family of seven children, together with William Rambo, who married his daughter Grace, in Pennsylvania. The names of the family are as follows- — Grace, Henry, Charles Nathan, John, Noah and Joseph; they drove two five-horse teams and four head of cattle, on the old wagon road from Bedfoi’dCo.. Pa., one hundred miles this side of Baltimore; they were twenty-one days performing the journey; he purchased another half section of one of the Mitchells on his arrival, and built a grist and saw mill. The town of Waterford was laid out on a part of his land, and the post office was named “ Levering,” in honor of John Levering, his son, who was the first Postmaster. The family settled in the woods, and lived on corn-bread at first; they sowed some buckwheat, probably the first raised in this vicinity, and it attracted large numbers of wild turkeys, which they killed; it was on his farm that the block house spoken of in the sketch of Stephen Cook, was built, and it was connected with the residence by a protected passage-way. Daniel Levering was born Feb. 3, 1764, in New Jersey, and died Dec. 31, 1820, leaving Nathan, the third son and father of our subject, to settle up his large estate. We will now trace the fortunes of Nathan Levering. He was born Oct. 14, 1795; he was eighteen years old when he came to this State. Possessing a fair education, obtained in the schools of Pennsylvania, he attended school two terms in the old log schoolhouse on his father's farm, then began teaching, which he soon abandoned for the more congenial employment of farming. He received 160 acres of the present site from his father’s estate, to which he added fifty acres more, clearing a

' r large portion. He united in marriage with Mary Kerney, April 17, 1827. She was a daughter of William and Sarah (Mackey) Kornev, and was born Sept. 4, 1800. They lived in a double hewed log house just east of this until 1845, when Mr. Levering burnt two hundred thousand brick and built the present substantial residence of nine large rooms and a hall, using one hundred thousand brick in its construction. The building is therefore thirty-five years old, yet in a state of good preservation. Nathan Levering raised a family of eight children: Sarah A., deceased, was wife of John McAnall; Mary J., now Mrs. Robert Moffet, of Congress Tp.; Esther, died at the age of twenty; Daniel, William W., now in Philadelphia; Elizabeth, now Mrs. Jacob Talmage; Martha, now Mrs. T. McKee; Samuel, died at about twenty-five, leaving two children. Nathan Levering died in December, 1872. He was a man of sterling integrity and irreproachable character; he was justice of the peace in this township for a number of years. He was delegated by this section to influence the legislature in behalf of the organization of the county at two different sessions of that body. He and wife were members of the Harmony Presbyterian Church, and he assisted in building the old lek£ and also the frame building which stands at present.

As printed in History of Morrow County and Ohio : containing a brief history of the state of Ohio ... a history of Morrow County ... biographical sketches, portraits of some of the early settlers and prominent men, (1880). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.