Defiance County Pioneers - Joseph D. Kerr

JOSEPH D. KERR

1846 - 1902

"Joseph D. Kerr died in the Cook county hospital Friday, December 12, where he was taken.  He fell on the streets of Chicago from the effects of a paralytic stroke on December 3.  He remained in the hospital nine days.  He went to Chicago December 1 to attend the stock show, and intended to leave that city for Toledo either Thursday or Friday.  Saturday his folks here became anxious about him, but it was not until December 8,  they succeeded in finding the place where he was sick.  He was unconscious most of the time after the attack of paralysis.

Ed. Culler and L. E. Griffin went to Chicago the fore part of last week, returning home Thursday evening.  Fillmore Kerr, a brother of the deceased, left for Chicago Friday morning, but before he arrived, Joseph D. had died.  Pneumonia had set in after the paralytic stroke.  Charles Miller, the undertaker, went to Chicago, and brought the remains home Saturday night.

Joseph D. Kerr was born August 2, 1846, in Middletown, Holmes county, Ohio, and with his parents in 1857, came to Hicksville, where he for a time attended the public schools.  Afterwards he attended the normal school at Williams Center for two terms and then taught school in this vicinity for several terms.  The objection of his parents hindered his enlisting during the civil war.

For six years, commencing with 1867, he conducted a flouring mill at Lagrange, Ind.  In 1873, he came to Hicksville, and was the leading spirit in organizing the well-known firm of Kerr Bros. & Co.

In 1883, Mr. Kerr retired from this firm and took a two years' law course in the Union College of Law at Chicago.  On his return to this place in June, 1884, he was elected justice of the peace.  In 1885, he took up the practice of law.  In 1889, he formed a law partnership with James E. Coulter.

In 1857, at the time of the advent of Mr. Kerr, the village contained less than one hundred inhabitants.  The public school had an enrollment from all the territory then included in the district of less than sixty.  Not a single manufacturing plant run by any other power than the hand was in Hicksville. 

About that time, Joseph and Wesley Dowell built a saw mill over on the site of the present Lower-Goller manufacturing plant; subsequently Joseph Kerr, Sr. rented the mill of these founders and Miles Chapman and Joseph D. and his brother Thomas became the working force of the mill and gained his first knowledge of mechanical aid in labor.  Industry was the prominent trait of his character.

From childhood until death, labor was the duty of every hour.  After the burning of the grist mill at Lagrange, Joseph D., Thomas and Filmore Kerr succeeded in getting a shelter shed over an old threshing engine, a bolting saw and a cut off, and the original of the present Kerr Bros. company plant was ready to lay the foundation of wealth without a dollar in addition, save mentality and a willingness to work.  This was the beginning with Joseph D. as the mastermind that built one of the largest handle plants in the world.  While Joseph D. did not remain with the firm of Kerr Bros & Co. through all the years of its growth, yet its breadth and scope of application was covered by the plan mapped out for its future by Joseph D. - a manufacturing institution that has furnished more days labor through all its ramifications than any other labor center in the village.

Mr. Kerr was a believer that a practical education consisted in a trained mentality that could and would furnish to the possessor a support and competence for old age..  While Mr. Kerr did not escape the army of critics with their close-drawn blankets and 'better than you' step.   No family in our village was better provided for.  No more thoughtful, painstaking father and husband.  No young man ever started in life with less.  Willing hands and an honest intention to succeed was his sole capital..." 

*Joseph D. Kerr was the father of Hicksville's long-time physician, Dr. Paul Kerr.  Dr. Kerr's only sibling, Dewitt Kerr, died at a young age and was buried with his parents.  His wife was Flora Culler Kerr.

Source: Obituaries: Pioneers of Northwest Ohio, Volume I.  Carma Rowe Estate, Johnson Memorial Library.  No date. Page 44. 

Copies available at the Defiance Public Library and the Sherwood and Hicksville branches.