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WHO WAS - W. R. Bearce
in Plum Township
Venango County, Pennsylvania
By H. W. Strawbridge

Wilson Charles Reuben Bearce, a son of David Marcus and Sarah Dixon Bearce, was born Nov. 9, 1862, near Cochranton. He was one of four children. The father was a millwright.

The Bearce family originally came from England to this county in 1638. The Dixon family may have been of Scotch-Irish descent.

Young Wilson was six months old before his father saw him, because he was serving in the civil War and it was that long before he received a furlough. His mother called him "Willie" when he was a little fellow, but he was popularly called "Billy" throughout his life.

Billy always liked the boilers in mills. When a youngster he would get a pan of water and set fire under it. Once he sealed over a pail of water, set fire under it and it blew up.

While in his early 20s, he arrived in the Maple Hill region and worked as a sawyer in a mill owned by a man named Byham.

It was there that he met Miss Imelda Maria Proper of Diamond, who occasionally stayed at the home of her Grandfather and Grandmother Mabus on Maple Hill. A courtship resulted in the marriage of the couple on July 2, 1885.

Imelda was born at Diamond on Jan. 31, 1868, the only child of Jackson A. and Nancy Jane Mabus Proper. Her father was a farmer.

After their marriage the couple went to Mercer County where Billy operated a gristmill known as the North Mill in the Sandy Lake region for his father. His father owned two gristmills - the North Mill and the Milledgeville Mill.

However, Imelda did not like it there, so the couple came back to Plum Township, and Billy worked as a laborer for a couple of years, likely in a mill somewhere. In the fall of 1887 Billy and Imelda moved into a house which sat immediately west of the old Grove gristmill between Diamond and Wallaceville. Billy's father made a bargain to trade his Milledgeville for the Grove Mill with J. H. and Mary A. McConnell, who owned the Grove mill. Twelve acres and 73 perches were in the Grove gristmill property, and the deed, made on Jan. 9, 1888, stated a value of $875.

The Grove Mill, which was approximately 40 X 60 feet, needed some repairing. Billy's father stayed there perhaps three months building a new overshot waterwheel. By the fall of 1889 the mill was fully repaired, and Billy began to work in earnest. In October 1889, he installed a new corn sheller in the mill.

Adjoining the mill on its east side was a sawmill which Billy had bought from one Jim Deemer of Mercer County. Billy once had a very close call in the sawmill. His clothes got caught in the machinery, and a neighbor, Ed Loker, who happened to be there, quickly pulled a belt off the machine to stop the power.

Joseph B. Grove, an early operator of the gristmill, did receive fatal injuries in the mill in the winter of 1870 when he got caught in the mechanism. His accident is believed to have occurred on the second floor.

In 1890 Billy installed more machinery to make a shingle mill. By November it was completed and he was making shingles at a busy rate.

The disastrous flood of June, 1892, washed out the milldam, and Billy spent a long time repairing the break in it.

Billy and Imelda had two children who with their dates of births were: Bessie Isadore Bearce, July 23, 1886, and Jackson Marcus Bearce, July 25, 1888. Bessie was married on Dec. 21, 1904, in New York State to Frank N. Seeley of Plum Center. They first lived in Plum Township, then moved to Titusville where she died of tuberculosis on Mailer Street on Aug. 2, 1913. She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Mr. Seeley remarried, and he primarily farmed. He died on April 15, 1963. Frank and Bessie had three sons, Paul A. Seeley of Jamestown, N.Y., Lawrence W. Seeley of Spring Grove, and Lee Seeley Symonds of Anaheim, Calif.

Jackson was married on Dec. 16, 1909, in Rochester, N.Y., to Miss Lillian Hoisington. The first lived near the Grove mill site, then moved to Rochester where they worked in a laundry. They then moved to Diamond on the farm of his Grandfather Proper, where they have since resided. They had six children, as follows: Mrs. Evangeline I. Ralston, deceased; Mrs. Hazel I. Whitmer of Diamond, Charles J. Bearce of Erie, Kenneth D. Bearce of Spenceport, N.Y., Mrs. June A. Ohl of Diamond, and Wilson L. Bearce of Heneye Falls, N.Y.

Each member of the Billy Bearce family had his or her duty to perform in the shingle mill. Billy sawed the shingles, Imelda jointed them, and Jackson and Bessie packed them.

In 1899 Billy tore down the house which sat west of the mill. It was a story-and-a-half structure, sized 16 by 24 feet. He then constructed a new two-story building, 24 feet square, on a location across the road and east of the mill. He intended it to be a horse barn in the future. The Bearce family moved into it with the idea to later build a new house. This new building sat on five acres which Billy had purchased from S. S. Green.
The new structure had stood only a short time when it burned on Jan. 24, 1900. A defective flu was blamed as the cause of the fire. Nobody was home. Billy was working in the gristmill, Imelda was visiting neighbors- the Minard Hancox family - Bessie was to school, and Jackson was visiting his Grandfather and Grandmother Proper. He had just gotton over the mumps, and since it was a nice day, he decided to go visiting. A cat was in the burning structure and they got there in time to let it out a window. It was scorched on one side. The family lost practically everything. All that was saved was what Billy managed to carry out in a large clothes basket.

Billy then hurriedly constructed a small house a few rods in front of the burned one. He put what odd pieces of lumber were on hand in the new house. Some boards in it were only three inches wide. He soon had it finished and the family moved into it. It is the present home of the Harry Acel family.

It was in March, 1900, that Billy bought out the shares of his mother and sisters in the Grove mill. His father had just died.

The gristmill was closed permanently in 1902 as the result of an accident which occurred. Jackson was grinding feed one day when something got caught in the cogs of the drivewheel and ruined it. It was never repaired.

In 1903 Billy and his family moved to the Gilbert Proper place northwest of Cherrytree. They first lived in the Proper house then he built a small home near a combination shingle and sawmill on the place. He and Charles Mabus bought this mill in a partnership deal. Billy had sold the shingle mill at the Grove mill to Louis Prenatt, then he bought a more modern shingle mill, called a Lockport mill, to use at the Cherrytree mill. He and Mabus ran a cider mill just one fall at the Cherrytree mill site.

Billy sold his interest in the mill to Mabus, then moved to Imelda's home farm at Diamond. The spring following he worked in both the Queen City Tannery and Acid Works in Titusville. He then stayed with his son-in-law and daughter, Frank and Bessie Seeley, in Titusville awhile.

In March 1908, they again moved back to the Proper farm at Diamond where he farmed and also dressed tools for Curt Crawford at Miller Farm. Following this he was employed at Louis Urenatt's sawmill near the present Horseshoe Curve in Troy Township.

In April, 1909, Billy sold the 12-acre Grove mill property to Crawford Billig for $212. It was agreed, however, that Billy tear down the old mill that summer, which he did.

Then Billy and Imelda moved to California to work in the oil fields. His only interest in oil here had been around the turn of the century when a well was drilled on his five acres he purchased from S. S. Green. Billy had a quarter interest. John Williams was the contractor. A good showing of oil was found in the well, and oil flowed down to the creek. The well was situated up a ravine southeast of the present Harry Acel barn. The ruination of this well happened when the men shot it at the wrong depth. They somehow measured it wrong.

Billy's work in the California fields first took place near Hollywood, then Sawtelle, and finally in an area further north.

Billy was also an inventor of sorts. His main invention was while he lived at Sawtelle, Calif. That was a combination fruit jar holder and cap wrench. He and a partner named Jones invested in a factory there to manufacture the products. Many were indeed manufactured and sold, but they did not have the right salesman to get started on profitable basis, and the venture failed to grow. The sets of their holders and wrenches sold at $1.50 per set. The box in which each set was sold had the following printed on it: "Peerless Non-Slip Fruit Jar Holder and Cap Wrench, Sawtelle, Calif. Manufactured by Bearce, Jones & Co., Los Angeles, P. O. Box 671, Sawtelle, Calif."

Billy also worked at other minor inventions. About 1890 he invented pinless clotheslines which Imelda sold while traveling around the countryside. One other invention was some type of a pipe swivel.

Billy and Imelda had made three different trips to California. They first came back here when their daughter, Bessie, took ill and died in 1913.

When they made their last trip out, they took Imelda's mother, Mrs. Nancy Jane Proper, with them. They were there perhaps 6 months when Nancy Jane took very ill. Her illness was caused by the spray and orange blossoms. She was in her late 60s, and she truly thought that she was not going to live. So, all back to Pennsylvania. Indeed, Nancy Jane fooled herself. She was to live until 1941 at the rip age of 93 !

After arriving back from California Billy and Imelda moved into the Dowling House, Titusville, following which they lived in the second house behind the Brady House. They at last lived over the Flickenger store at 102 E. Bloss St. During his last years Billy worked as a fireman and assistant engineer in the plant of the Titusville Iron Works.

Billy was a man five feet, 9 inches tall, with a weight of probably 180 pounds. He had iron gray hair during his last years.

He was a member of the Spiritualist Church in Titusville. He was a member of that faith for many years. He was the one who introduced it in the area of Diamond at the time it thrived there during the 1890s.

Imelda was probably five feet, 6 inches tall. She was a small, thin lady when young. During her mid age, however, she became very heavy. But she again became thin at last. She, too, was a Spiritualist.

In October, 1931, Billy suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. On Saturday afternoon, July 30, 1932, he had another stroke which caused his death the following morning at 5:15 a.m.

His funeral was conducted in the Titusville Spiritualist Church and following Tuesday afternoon with Rev. Oscar Erzkus of Buffalo officiating. Mrs. Larson and Mrs. S. S. Green assisted at the commital service in Diamond Cemetery.

Imelda continued living in Titusville for several years. During the last two years of her life she lived in the home of her son, J. M. Bearce, at Diamond. She died there following a long illness of dropsy at 10:30 p.m., Dec. 31, 1946, aged 78. She was buried beside her husband on Jan. 4.

Transcribed by Penny Kulbacki Minnick
minnick862@verizon.net

Disclaimer:there may be errors due to transcription ofinformation from both early and late (current contributors) work.