My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE S. BRINKERHOFF, who holds the office of Justice of the Peace at Warrensburg, has been retired from active business for the past four years, but superintends his property in this city. From 1882 until 1891 he was engaged in the lumber business in this place, and for the past twenty-five years has been a resident of Warrensburg, where he is held in high respect.

The parents of our subject were John and Rebecca (Sommers) Brinkerhoff, natives of Pennsylvania. The progenitor of the Brinkerhoff family in the United States was one Joris Diedrich, who came from Holland in 1638, settling on Manhattan Island. Several generations ago one of our subject’s ancestors located in the Keystone State, and his great-grandfather, Daniel Brinkerhoff, is buried in York County. The grandfather, Daniel, Jr., and his son John moved to Wayne County, Ohio, in 1833. The former was a farmer by occupation, but our subject’s father, who was born June 11, 1813, was a schoolteacher, surveyor and civil engineer. He filled various county offices, and for one year was a member of the State Legislature. He is still living in Wayne County, where he owns valuable tracts of land. Until the war he was a Democrat, but since then has been a strong Republican. When elected to the Legislature he overcame a Democratic majority of over twelve hundred, and though of a very retiring disposition was induced by his friends to enter the county campaign work as a lecturer. He is a member of the United Presbyterian Church, and is a man of high moral character. His second son, Daniel O., gave up his life as a sacrifice to his country during the late war, and Joseph W., another son, is now a practicing physician of Burbank, Ohio.

A native of Wayne County, Ohio, G. S. Brinkerhoff was born April 25, 1835, and spent the first ten years of his life on the farm. He then moved to Wooster, Ohio, where he attended the public schools, and at the age of nineteen graduated from Wooster Academy. Obtaining a certificate, he taught school during the winter terms and studied the remainder of the year for the next three years. In November, 1856, he married Rebecca Briner, of Wooster, and the following year moved to Huntington, Ind., where he received the appointment of County Surveyor, to which office he was afterwards elected, proving a trustworthy and zealous official. At the same time, his duties not being too arduous, he taught during the winter months.

In December, 1861, Mr. Brinkerhoff enlisted in Company H, Forty-seventh Indiana Infantry, first being made First Lieutenant and later Quartermaster of the regiment. He was under the command of General Nelson in the Thirteenth Army Corps, and afterwards fought under General Pope. The first engagement in which he took part was at New Madrid, Mo., and with his regiment he was first to pass through the city of Memphis after its surrender. For a number of months he was stationed in Memphis and Helena, Ark., subsequently entering the campaign at Vicksburg, where he was in a number of engagements, and for eighty-one days was under fire. After the battle at Port Hudson, near New Orleans, he was sent on an expedition under Banks up Bayou Tasche, and in the winter of 1863 encamped near the Crescent City. The following year he was sent on the Red River expedition; next we find him at Morganzia Bend, in Louisiana, then in New Orleans, and later in Little Rock and Memphis. He was honorably discharged in December, 1864, at the end of three years of faithful performance of duty. He was fortunate in never receiving a scratch, was never taken prisoner, nor was he ever in the hospital. During the winter of 1864-65 he recruited two companies at Huntington, Ind.

In 1865 our subject went into partnership with John Kenower at Huntington, engaging in the lumber business and operating a planing-mill. Two years later, or in the spring of 1868, he bought land in Johnson County and turned his attention to its cultivation, teaching school during the winter. In 1873 he received an appointment as missionary of the American Sunday-school Union, and for seven years traveled through southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas organizing Sunday-schools. From 1873 until 1880 he once more engaged in teaching, and then for a few years, as previously stated, turned his attention to the lumber trade in Warrensburg, where he has since made his home. The first Presidential ballot of our subject was cast for J. C. Fremont, but in 1860 he voted for Douglas. Since that time he has usually supported Republican nominees.

November 18, 1893, Mrs. Brinkerhoff was summoned to her final rest in this city. She joined the Baptist Church in 1858 with her husband, and was a faithful member of the denomination. From 186S she was identified with the Baptist Church of Warrensburg, in which our subject has been a Deacon for more than twenty years. Their eldest daughter, Martha, graduated from the normal in 1878 and was a successful teacher for ten years. She is now the wife of S. C. Phelps, a merchant of Walnut Ridge, Ark., and has one child, Lorene. Laura, a younger daughter of our subject, passed through the scientific course in the normal, and October 25, 1877, became the wife of G. W. Rayhill. They have one son, Charles Brinkerhoff Rayhill, and three daughters, Lola, Martha and Mary.