Forrer family

The Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection includes the papers of at least six generations of Dayton families, primarily the Samuel Forrer family and the Jeremiah H. Peirce family, and their ancestors and descendants.

The following brief biographical sketch describes the members of immediate families of Samuel Forrer and Jeremiah H. Peirce. More detailed biographical sketches of individual family members, as well as other related families, can be found at the beginning of each subseries.

Samuel Forrer was born in 1793 in Pennsylvania. He moved to Ohio in 1817, and he became a surveyor. In 1820, Samuel became involved in preliminary studies for an Ohio canal system. He became one of the canal engineers on the Miami Canal (later Miami-Erie Canal), and he served several terms on the state Board of Canal Commissioners and the Board of Public Works. Samuel Forrer was involved with the canal system for more than 50 years, longer than any other individual in the history of Ohio's canals. Samuel died in 1874 in Dayton, Ohio.

In 1826, Samuel Forrer married Sarah H. Howard, daughter of Horton Howard. Sarah was born in 1807 and died in 1887. The couple had six children: Elizabeth H. Forrer (1827-1874) married Jeremiah H. Peirce (1818-1889); Edward (1830-1838); Augusta Forrer (1833-1907) married Luther B. Bruen (1822-1864), who was fatally wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness; Ann Forrer (1835-1837); Mary Forrer (1838-1929), who also married Jeremiah H. Peirce; and Howard Forrer (1841-1864), who was killed in the Battle of Atlanta.

Elizabeth H. Forrer was born in 1827. In 1846, she married Jeremiah H. Peirce, son of Joseph Peirce and Henrietta Elliot. Jeremiah was born in 1818. He was a Dayton businessman: a lard oil manufacturer and later lumber dealer. In 1854, Jeremiah built a house in Harrison Township for his growing family and called it "Five Oaks." Elizabeth H. (Forrer) Peirce died in 1874, and in 1882, Jeremiah married her younger sister Mary Forrer. Mary was born in 1838. She was a talented artist, specifically in the areas of drawing and painting, and she had studied in Europe and New York City. Jeremiah H. Peirce died in 1889, and Mary (Forrer) Peirce died in 1929.

Jeremiah H. Peirce and Elizabeth H. (Forrer) had eight children: Samuel Forrer Peirce (1847-1855); Henrietta Elliot Peirce (1848-1919), who married H. Eugene Parrott (1839-1933) and had nine children; Edward Davies Peirce (1850-1868); Sarah Howard Peirce (1853-1930) was a teacher and opened the first kindergarten in Dayton; Mary "Mellie" Forrer Peirce (1855-1892); Elizabeth Forrer Peirce (1857-1930) was a nurse; J. Elliot Peirce (1861-1940) was a successful Dayton businessman who married and had five children; and Howard Forrer Peirce (1865-1899) was a talented and well-known pianist who died of tuberculosis at age 33.

While the Samuel Forrer and Jeremiah H. Peirce families are the primary creators of this collection, there are many documents pertaining to these and many other relatives: Horton Howard (1770-1833), a leading Ohio Quaker and federal land agent; John H. Howard (1813-1878), a Dayton lawyer and mayor; Joseph Peirce (1786-1821), an early Dayton settler, merchant, and banker; Dr. John Elliot (d. 1809), the first doctor to take permanent residence in Dayton; James Steele (1778-1841), an early Dayton settler, merchant, banker, and judge; Daniel C. Cooper (1773-1818), one of Dayton's most important early settlers; and David Zeigler (1748-1811), the first mayor of Cincinnati.

For more detailed biographies of specific individuals and families, refer to the beginning of the relevant series/subseries in the original expanded paper finding aid, available at the Dayton Metro Library Local History Room. Also refer to the finding aid's index for all page numbers where specific individuals are mentioned.