Asa Mosher (1771 - 1843)

Born 24 Nov 1771 in Westport, Bristol, Massachusetts Bay

Ancestors

Husband of Bethiah Mosher — married 27 Feb 1794 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts Bay

Descendants

Died 4 Mar 1843 at age 71 in Edison, Morrow, Ohio, United States

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Biography

Asa was a Friend (Quaker)

Asa Mosher is the son of Obediah Mosher and Hannah (Brownell) Mosher. Asa was a Quaker and a father of eleven children.^[1]

On February 27, 1794, in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Asa married Bethiah Gifford Mosher.^[2] She was born July 23, 1771, in Dartmouth, died July 31, 1856, in Mount Gilead, Morrow County, Ohio, daughter of Lemuel Mosher and Ruth (Gifford) Mosher. Both Asa and Behthiah were descendants of Hugh Mosier, Asa through the line of his son John, and Bethiah, descending from Hugh Mosier through the line of his son Nicholas. ^[3]

Asa and Bethiah moved to Granville, New York, where they made a home in the wilderness. There were there born to them eleven children, seven sons, namely: Obadiah, Robert, Asa, Peleg, Stephen, Joseph and John, and four daughters, Ruth, Esther, Peace and Hannah. All grew to adult age and all had families except Joseph, who died childless. The daughters all married widowers. John, the youngest son, lived to the age of ninety-seven years. The average age of these eleven children and their parents was more than seventy years. ^[4]

In 1818 Asa, who followed agriculture, traded his farm for a stock of merchandise and with his entire family migrated by team to Marion, now Morrow county, Ohio, making the journey by team and sleds in the winter. In Ohio he cleared a farm in the beech woods, where he again engaged in farming, also in blacksmithing and milling.

He lived to see all of his children in homes of their own in his immediate vicinity. The house he built on his farm more than eighty years ago is still standing and is occupied by a descendant. The nails with which it was fastened together he hammered out on his anvil. The doors were fashioned, railroad style, that is, they were double thick and the boards in their construction were placed at an angle across each other, thus making them of great strength.

This precaution was taken as a safeguard against intrusions of the Indians, which were liable to occur at any time. Indians were their most plentiful neighbors, some of them wild and some semi-civilized. One old Indian was a frequent visitor at the Mosher home and in discussing the problem of the civilizing of the Indians would say, "The way to do it is for the white man to marry the squaws and the white women the Indians."

There were, until recent years, orchards of apple trees all through that region, the seeds of which were planted by a character called Johnny Appleseed who traveled through the country from New York westward as a missionary. In his journeyings he carried with him a sack of apple seeds and would plant them wherever he found a spot suitable.

Asa Mosher died in 1843 and his wife in 1856. While none of the family were strictly pioneers, their tendencies were ever to follow closely in the wake of the true pioneers.

Sources

1. ↑ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=77679179
2. ↑ Monthly meeting records, Births-Marriages-Deaths 1699-1880, Society of Friends, Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends : Dartmouth, Mass.), p627.
3. ↑ Chamberlain, Mildred Mosher & Clarenbach, Laura McGaffey; Descendants of Hugh Mosher and Rebecca Maxson Through Seven Generations. Madison, WI: Laura M. Clarenbach, 1990. Hereafter Hugh Mosher.
4. ↑ History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 302 L. O. MOSHER Family History http://iagenweb.org/muscatine/biographies1911/mosher.htm