Reeves, Josiah H.
Summary
Father: Stephen ReevesMother: Sarah Paullin
Birth: 21 Mar 1827, near Allowaystown, Salem County, New Jersey
Birth Source: Headstone & Bio
Death: 20 Jul 1898
Death Source: Headstone
Spouse1: Wilhelmina Myers, m. 1 Feb 1849, Salem County, New Jersey
Narrative
Children of Josiah H. Reeves and Wilhelmina Myers:- Emerelda Reeves, b. c1849
- Stephen Reeves, b. 19 Sep 1851, d. 19 Nov 1851
- Sarah Reeves, b. c1852
- Wilhelmina Reeves, b. c1855
- Mary Reeves, b. c1858, m. Wiiliam A. Logue
- Elizabeth Reeves, b. c1860
- Maud Reeves, b. 18609
The newspaper Dollar Weekly News contains the following life sketch written by a friend at his death. It includes interesting tidbits about his father Stephen in addition to Josiah:
An Appreciative Sketch of Our Late Well-Known Citizen by a Life-long Friend.
Josiah H. Reeves and the author of this brief mortuary sketch were quite life-long friends and acquaintances. We began life together, lived in the same village, breathed the one atmosphere, climbed the same hills, attended the same school and partook of the Same mental pabulum from the same rural instructor. The environments were much the same with each had in short our lives ran on closely parallel lines.
It mattered but little to Josiah or I, that fortune smiled upon him from birth and frowned upon me, or that wealth had come to his family and poverty to mine, since as boys together we knew of no aristocracy save that of muscle and in this particular we were not as greatly unlike.
..this when boys, and rather small ..too. When we grew up, first as ...boys" and then men, there was a ...ing something that led in diverg... and the parting of the ways...we were more apart than ever before.
..some years of this separation...changing mutations of time...brought us once more together, this time at Bridgeton. So we ...-no, didn't renew-an ... made in boyhood is never.... simply continued right on ...friendship, I was going to any and we were once more “Si" and "Joe.”
Alas, alas, that this cannot always be this side the river, and could I but look into the numberless bereaved and aching hearts the world over, I am sure I should find everywhere a responsive alas, alas. So when I heard of the death of Josiah H. Reeves the other day and knew I had lost—no, no, not lost—knew that I had parted with my lifelong and close friend, a sense of inexpressible sadness possessed me.
Another tie, I said to myself, severed, another link binging me to the glorious past of my sunny childhood broken, and now have one less tie on earth and one more, I fondly trust, in heaven.
I not only knew the deceased, Josiah H. Reeves, well and long but also knew his family quite as well.
His father, Stephen Reeves, was in his day the most wealthy landowner in Upper Alloways Creek township, or if not that, at least among the most wealthy there.
At this distance I am not able to state (and believe no one (else able) the exact acres of farmland, miles of timber, vessel property, mills, stores, hotels, dwelling property, &c of which he died possessed, but it was large. Beginning at where House's saw mill now stands he may have owned in nearly an unbroken line, and I believe did, property nearly the whole way to Quinton’s Bridge, a distance of over four miles by the main road. The elder Reeves (Stephen) married when quite young and had the misfortune to lose both his wife and a child soon thereafter. His second marriage was to a Miss Paullin, daughter of Deacon Enos Paullin, of Salem, N. J.
This family of Paullins were Baptists while Mr. Reeves, as he often declared, belonged to the "big church," by which he meant no church at all.
By this second union were born a number of children, all of whom, or nearly all, died rather young. Their names were Enos, the eldest, who died in 1852 aged 86; Sarah Ann, afterward the wife of John Ballenger, died in 1857, aged 33 years; William in 1854, aged 23 years; Charles in 1858, aged 22 years; Stephen in 1857, aged 19 years. Mary, wife of David P. Smith, in 1863, aged 40 years; Hannah, the wife of James Barker, in 1871, (age unknown to the writer,) and Jacob was born on the old homestead Feb. 16, 1825 and died in Alloway March 4, 1883 in the 59th year of his age. The date of the death of Josiah is so recent as not to require mention.
He was the oldest in the family at the time of demise, including in this estimate his father and mother, the former of whom died in Dec. 1839 (?) aged 64 and the lotter in the February of 1840, aged 48. I am particular in thus noting the lineage of this family for the reason that at the time of the death of Stephen Beeves, Sr., and later, they were among the best known of all Upper Alloways Creek residents.
For some years (early in life) the departed had a presentiment that he should live to be no older than his father, but he not only did this, but also survived all his brothers and sisters and died the most aged member of his family.
Along early in the '20's - I am uncertain just when, probably '24 or '25 - Stephen Reeves built a large brick dwelling adjoining his mills near Allowaystown and moved from the “red house farm” into it soon after completion. This house was built after the plan of the best brick residences of that day and still remains standing, apparently good as new.
It was in this house on March 21, 1827, that Josiah H. Reeves was born. Here he lived until his majority, working on the farm, driving team, attending mill or whatever might come to hand supplementing his work by a course of studies during the winter months at the Allowaystown pay school under the tutelage first of W. W. Wood and later of Jonathan L. Brown.
A singular ending of this sketch is that while every son and daughter of the Stephen Reeves family are now dead, some of them a long time dead, each of the three sons-in-law, Smith, Ballenger and Barker, are still living, each at a greatly advanced ago.
In the year 1849, then in his 22d year of ago, he married an estimable lady in tho person of Miss Wilhelmina Myers (or Maier) and settled down to housekeeping almost within sight of tho old homestead.
After a short stay in this, his first home, he moved to Bowentown, then to Quinton, and about the year 1861 to this city.
Research Notes
Sources
Marriage1: FamilySearch - New Jersey, County Marriages, 1682-1956Burial: Findagrave - Old Broad Street Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey
1850 Census: Upper Alloway's Creek, Salem County, New Jersey
1860 Census: Upper Alloway's Creek, Salem County, New Jersey
1870 Census: Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey
1880 Census: Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey
Dollar Weekly News, 6 Aug 1898