Beaver has strong German Roots
A few years after Beaver was settled in the1810 and named Reynoldsville after a settler, the German migration began. This was in the 1840-50 period and many descendants are still living in the area yet.
Charles R. Frey, of Dayton, Ohio, a Beaver native is a good example of the German influence and background. He sent me a family tree and I’ll briefly relate a few items.
His ancestors were Richard Frey, born in 1803 in Neuhofen, Germany, and died, 1865 in Pike County, Ohio. He married Katharine Bortene Porune, 1830 in Neuhofen and was born 1804 in Bahl, Germany, and died 1896 in Pike County, Ohio. They left Germany April 21, 1843 and arrived in New York the following month. They traveled to Cleveland via the Hudson River, the New York-Eric Canal, and Lake Erie.
After staying six months in Cleveland, Ohio, they then traveled the Ohio and Erie Canal to Waver1y, Ohio and purchased 37 acres of uncleared land on Meadow Run, east of Waverly on February 20, 1844 for $145, from another German immigrant, Frederick Zahn.
One of the children, was Peter J. Frey, born in 1830 on Neuhofen; died in 1908, Waverly, Ohio. He married Mary Magdalene Probst, 1852 in Speyer, Germany and they followed Peter’s parents to Pike County. One son, Jacob, was born in 1855 in Pike County. He married Mary Hammerstein in 1880 in Waverly. Here is the Beaver connection, as she was the daughter of Phillip Hammerstein and Elizabeth Schaadt born in 1857 in Pike County.
One of their children was Charley Frey, born 1884 in Waverly and died 1957 in Beaver. He married Stella Lyons in 1916. One son, Charles Raymond, born in 1917 in Beaver, who in the fall of 1935 joined the CCC where he spent six months in Vista, California then returned to Beaver. He worked locally until he enlisted in the US Army Air Corps, Chanute Field, Illinois in November in 1939, and stayed in through World War II, eventually retiring from the Air Force and settling in the Riverside area of Dayton near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Jim Henry - Author of Pike’s Past
Abstracted from Waverly Watchman Newspaper
October 1, 2008
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Pike Co. Genealogy & Historical Society
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