Waverly, Ohio

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Wednesday, October 12th . Wal-mart parking lot in Waverly, Ohio. Starting mileage 18252. 59 degrees and RAINING! Glad we were on asphalt all night with good drainage in the lot.

The main purpose of this trip to Ohio was to do some genealogy on the way in Pike and Ross counties and then attend a Mock, Mauck, Muk, Moak etc. family reunion in nearby Gallapolis.

For the next few days we combed the Pike County Courthouse and the Courthouse Annex to find documents pertaining to the Tuvell, Bivens, Brinkman and Meier families that settled into this area in the early and mid-1800’s. We did find a will of John Myer and the date probated but couldn’t find where he might have been buried. Then, through looking at the court of common pleas records we found where one brother had sued his siblings to partition some land. Obviously, the father had died without a will and the land had to be divided. This gave me the names of all the siblings and then doing a search of the deeds found the name of the property owner. Since a wife was not named in the suit, the wife had to have died first.

Spent the night at nearby Scioto Trail State Park. Very pretty place, well laid out among the trees and around a nice size lake. Spent $22 for the night with electric hook-up. Discount only to Ohio seniors.

Thursday, Oct 13th and Friday the14th. Continued with overcast weather and 55 degrees on both days. Mileage at 18266 to start Thursday and 18296 on Friday.

Spent both days continuing to hunt down documents, deeds, and records. After lunch at a nearby, not so good, Chinese Restaurant , we decided to drive out around Lake White. Following the county map we drove out to get a look at the lay of the land our family once owned. There were many very poor trailer parks and really run down housing on the lake front along where we drove. We did drive through some pretty very old farm land and then on to Pine Lake State Park to spend the night. Again a very pretty park with some buildings built by the CCC.
Friday night we spent the night at Waverly Wal-mart again.

Saturday, October 15th. Clear blue sky but windy at 57 degrees. Mileage at 18320.

We wanted to go to the Waverly/Pike County Historical Museum that was housed in one of the old German churches in town. We had hoped that there were records of that church and maybe we could find info about our family---both the Brinkmann and Meires came from Germany to Ohio. Mother, Dad and Valerie had researched these two families in Germany. The problem was that the church was only open from 1-4 on Saturdays and Sundays so we had a morning to kill.

We started off by finding a laundramat and did up our clothes finishing that chore by 11:30. Wasn’t too bad a cost at $2.00 a load to wash and 25 cents for 6 minutes to dry. We drove out highway 220 to take pictures of the land that the George Tuvell and his wife Elizabeth Bivens Tuvell farmed next to James Bivens, Elizabeth’s brother.

We stopped and purchased books at the library’s book sale—pocketbooks were only a quarter. Drove a block to the museum and parked Rosie in the old Courthouse parking lot and walked across the street just as it opened. What a waste of time! The little old ladies that we the volunteers had no idea about what we were asking about. There were no church records and the museum was an odd collection of things that people had donated.

So--------drove down along the Scioto River to the community of Jasper where Henri Brinkmann had purchased a number of narrow lots right on the river. Valerie got out and took pictures. Jasper and the town of Waverly were once on the canal route from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. Both were active, bustling towns.

Jasper is just a wide spot in the road now. Valerie took a picture of the 5 lots the Brinkmanns original owned--now a Marathon gas station and other properties. She spoke with a woman who came out to see what she was doing and she mentioned the Jasper cemetery that was up on a hill. We drove to the cemetery and then left Rosie and walked up the steep track. At the top of the hill was a very old abandoned church with no name on it. The gravestones were in complete disrepair and although we looked at all of them you could make out only a few names. What writing we could make out, was of people who died about the same time period; in the 1859/60 as Johan Meier. Since it was about a block from his son-in-law’s lots in Jasper, John Meier is most likely buried here.

We left Jasper and drove highway 124 to where it intersects with highway 35 at the town of Jackson, and then down 35 to the Bob Evan’s home farm in the tiny town of Rio Grande. The farm was having their annual festival that week ending on Sunday. Since we arrived after 3:00 on Saturday, the price for camping in their HUGE field of campers was $15 until Monday at noon. This price included entrance fees for both of us at $5. each. We planned to stay both Sat and Sun nights so, we felt we really had a deal at $2.50 per night camping. Right after we rolled into a spot one of the huge bus-size camper pulled right next to us. A real mutt and Jeff look.

Right after dinner we took a shuttle bus back into a hollow in the woods that had a small stage set up facing a slanted hill. We put up our camp chairs and listened with the others to Blue grass music played by a group of young men. When their set was finished we listened abit to the next group and decided we didn’t like their singing as well, so after buying some CDs from the first group we moseyed on back to the shuttle stop. At 9 o’clock they had a real good fireworks display for us to watch standing right outside Rosie II. Ending mileage 18395.

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Comments

[Wendell]

satellite dish
Are you sure the satellite dish isn't authentic? They coulda had a dish in the 1850s.

[Lori]

Tuvell Family
Hello, distant Tuvell relations! I also descend from George and Elizabeth Tuvell. My mother's maiden name is Tuvell. I was interested in your photos of former Tuvell and Brinkman land. Any signs of the remnants of houses out there? Anyway, feel free to contact me by e-mail if you would like to know more about how my branch ties in.