Beeks line: Andrew Wise 1796-1868

    Andrew Wise had quite a life.  Because some of it was spent near our current location, it seems like we should be able to just reach out and find him, but that's not the case.  We have bits and pieces and not much more.  

Andrew was born sometime between 1795 and 1800, probably in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, where his parents lived. So far, I haven't found a record of his birth or christening, so his age is based on census records.  His parents were Johan Jacob and Charlotte Raub Weiss, and they came to Shelby County, Ohio by 1819. when Jacob is shown on tax records in Loramie Township.  Andrew had siblings, including Jacob and possibly Peter and Samuel.  

Andrew was a young man when the family arrived in Shelby County, and he soon married Mary Serfass, daughter of George Philip and possibly Eva Servoss (as you can see, there are several spellings for that name) in 1821.  The other tidbit I've found in Shelby County is that he purchased the rifle of his deceased brother, Jacob, when there was an auction of his goods. 

The two settled down in Shelby County and had a family of four sons and at least one daughter.  There are two people listed in the 1840 sentence who could be daughters but we only know the name of one, who is Elizabeth. The second daughter may possibly be Mary Wise who married John Wilson in Wabash County, Indiana in 1854.  I have been unable to trace her further, but the time period fits, and it is quite possible she was named after her mother.  There is quite a bit of room for other children, too, who probably didn't live, because we have a time gap of John born in 1823 to Samuel, who was born in about 1832.  Mary may fit here, and possibly Nancy, or/and Sarah, who also married in Wabash County, Nancy in 1861 to John Roby and Sarah to Ambrose Wright in 1856.  I found no other Wise family other than Andrew in Wabash County in 1850, so there is room for speculation.  Please note that this is speculation!!

Sometime in the early 1840s, the Wise family moved to Wabash County, Indiana.  Andrew had an earmark on file there as of November, 1844.  He received a patent to 43 acres of land dated January 1, 1850, in a certificate with the name of President Zachary Taylor on it.  This indicates he was the first white owner of this land, which was previously owned by Miami Indians, but that is a story for another time. The land was located in Twp 27 N, Range 8E, which was near Lagro. 

Much of the rest of his story is told in the 1860 census.  Here we learn that he was known as "Andy", not Andrew, and we learn that Mary is gone.  I don't have a firm death date for her, but I've seen "about 1844", so she may actually have died before the family moved to Indiana, and that may have been a motivating factor in the move.  We also learn that Andy and his two sons, John and Samuel, were unable to read and write, and the answer for Elizabeth is not noted, perhaps having to do with the fact that the question was to be asked of those over 20 and Elizabeth was just 20.  We can hope that she was literate, because the 1850 census shows Elizabeth, David, and Philip all in school, but we know that David had trouble learning.

The fact that the older men in the family were illiterate perhaps explains the low value assigned to Andy's estate.  His land was valued at 400 dollars and his personal property at 300 dollars.  This is less than many of his neighbors.  During the next few years, Andy's life became more problematic.  At least two of his sons, David and Philip, were drafted toward the end of the Civil War.  I've found Civil War records for John and Samuel, also, but I am not sure they are from Wabash County so at this point, that is a question still to be researched.  We know that David had a hard life, and perhaps the other sons did also.  

It appears that at his death, just before October 27, 1868, the coffin was paid for by the county.  A Samuel Wise, who may have been his son Samuel, died at the County Poor Farm in 1874.  Was this what happened to Andy, also?  His name is not on the list of known burials there, so we can only speculate at this time.  But if the county paid for the coffin, he died a poor man.   

Andy/Andrew may have led a difficult life.  There may be more to his story than we know.  But we know that he lived through the War of 1812, the War with Mexico, and the Civil War, and that he sent sons to the last conflict.  I wonder what he thought of his life.  Was he a bitter man, or resolved, or did he find joy in the4 small things such as watching his animals and his crops grow?  We can be grateful for his life.

The line of descent is:

Andrew Wise-Mary Serfass

David Wise-Matilda Martin

Elizabeth Wise-John W Beeks

Wilbur Beeks-Cleo Aldridge

Mary Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger

Their descendants