Mongar, Josiah

Posted By: Ann Mongar
Date: 5 August 2002

JOSIAH MONGAR:

Josiah Mongar was born in New Jersey and died in Ponca, Dixon County, Nebraska in 1874. Josiah is buried in Ponca Cemetery. He was married three times. First to a French women and they had no children. Second to Marilla Belden and they had four children of this marriage: Henry Clay Mongar, Maria Mongar, Martha Mongar, and Josiah Mongar. Then in 1839, Josiah married Elizabeth Sarah Coapstick in Darke County, Ohio and of this marriage they had nine children: Winfield Scott Mongar, Elizabeth Jane Mongar, Nancy Ellen Mongar, John Thomas Mongar, Josiah S. Mongar, Thomas C. Mongar, George Mongar and Malissa Anne Mongar.

Josiah Mongar was an early settler of Darke County, Ohio, who died in Nebraska in 1874 at the age of 80. In partner ship with his son-in-law John D. Cater who had married Maria Mongar, Josiah Mongar had bought a Woolen Mill in Winchester, Indiana about 1849. After fire destroyed in about 1851, they moved the operation to what became Union City, Ohio, which erected the first saw mill in 1852 and also operated a Woolen Mill and a dry goods store. Ebenezer Tucker indicates also that Josiah Mongar operated a Dry Goods Store at Salem on the Jay-Randolph County line. The may explain how Henry C. Mongar met Jarusha Ann Cline, whose family lived near Salem in Madison Township, Jay County.

Josiah Mongar was among 38 Winchester property owners voting unanimously in 1838 to incorporate. At one time, he also owned and operated the Franklin House, an early Winchester (IN) hotel that John D. Carter and Maria Mongar were married in. Josiah Mongar also served from 1840-1844 as postmaster of Winchester and was a Justice of the Peace there.

A Whig, Josiah Mongar headed a "company of 100 men in uniform" which marched in a rally for William Henry Harrison held at Greenville, Ohio in 1840 "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" presidential campaign. A thousand people from Randolph County, Indiana were among an estimated 100,000 attending the rally.

Josiah Mongar also had a role in founding Union City, which sits astride the Indiana-Ohio Line. A Darke County(Ohio) history list him among the property owners who in 1853 asked Darke County board of commissioners to incorporate Union City, Ohio, Randolph County, Indiana and Darke County Histories also indicate that Josiah Mongar made the Ohio side's original plat.

One history says that Josiah Mongar "owned 40 acres now at the center of Union City Ohio corporation on both sides of the railroad. He donated 10 acres to the Bee Line (Railroad) as grounds for shops, switches, warehouses, ect..., and also erected a saw mill about the same time...on the corner of Division Street and the railroad." Alfred Lenox, who came to Randolph County in the 1852, identified Josiah Mongar and John D, Carter as among those already "on both sides if the line but mostly in Ohio" when he arrived.

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