Early History, page 4
When I was asked to speak to
the Van Wert
Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society on the development of
Keartown, my first thought was, "It won't take more than five
minutes to tell all I know." Then the person who invited me
said
there is also interest in the development of Northwest Van Wert
in which Keartown is located. With this additional objective,
it
seemed possible to speak intelligently for 25 minutes on the
expanded subject. Little did I know!
Five minutes
to talk about
Keartown — in my thinking. Catherine Kear's
Addition to Van Wert must have come about because of her husband
who is my great grandfather, Thomas Reed Kear. Obviously,
when
the 1886 Van Wert County Atlas showed three roads in Keartown
named Kear Road, all of this surely must have been in honor of
Thomas R. Kear. After all, he had been a Deputy Sheriff under
William Majors, and became Sheriff in 1838 when Majors resigned.
Moreover, Thomas was a pioneer in the development of Van Wert,
serving in many official positions, thus naming a section of town
in his memory is about all we need to know.
Wrong!
In my
research for
information about the
development of Northwest Van Wert it became apparent that there
was more to how Keartown came into existence than previously had
been presumed. My assumption that the roads had been named for
Thomas Kear was only partially correct; only the present Kear
Road was named for him.
To consider the development of Keartown go to page 5.
Information on this site related to the Kear family is from The John Cears Kear Family compiled, written and edited by Donald L. Kear, copyright © 1984. Copyright © 2000 - 2006 by Donald L. Kear. All rights reserved. Portions of the pages on this site may be reproduced for nonprofit use only. Credit shall be given to the source.