Back to the Barreres

Ladies and gentlemen, I had the pleasure of meeting Sally Barrere over the weekend.

I’ve known of Sally for years, and we’re relatives. As you may or may not recall, I wrote a series on the Barrere family a while back, and meant to see it all the way through, but got swept away by the Temperance Movement that swept through Hillsboro in the 1870s.

When I penned the series of offerings on the Barreres of yore, I had hoped to talk with Sally, and thanks to a good friend, attorney Susan Davis Thompson, our paths finally crossed and we were able to chat a bit about history.

I talked about how I have been a journalist for a long time and have worked for newspapers, and she immediate began telling me about how her father, Granville Barrere, published the local newspaper for years and years. I smiled and agreed that I still have a long, long way to go to be the kind of newspaperman Granville Barrere was, or his father was before him for that matter.

Granville’s dad, George Washington Barrere, is the main reason Sally and I are related. George married a Brown, actually two Browns, and my great-great-grandfather, Wesley T. Roush, married a Brown, actually two Browns.

George Washington Barrere, who was born in 1831, married Mary Brown, and they had two children before Mary passed away in 1869 before the age of 30. He later married Mary’s cousin, Arminda J. Brown. By the way, Arminda’s folks, Joshua and Jeannette Brown, built the home my folks live in today, the place where I grew up and the place where Arminda grew up. George and Arminda Barrere had four children, the youngest being Granville, Sally Barrere’s dad.

My great-great-grandfather, Wesley T. Roush, married Sarah Brown, Arminda’s younger sister. Wesley and Sarah had four sons, including twins who died in infancy. Their second son, Ted, is my great-grandfather and was very good friends with Granville Barrere in addition to being first cousins.

Ted’s son, Wesley T. Roush, is my granddad, and it should be noted here that my grandparents are Wesley and Sarah Roush, and my great-great-grandparents are also Wesley and Sarah Roush.

Sarah Brown Roush passed away during a flu epidemic in 1917, and Wesley T. Roush married Mary Brown, Sarah’s younger sister, in 1919, right around the time the Cincinnati Reds won the World Series over the White Sox (Sally Barrere and I are both big Reds fans!). I’ve written quite a bit on Mary Brown Roush, who was at the center of a bitter feud between Mary’s brother, John Brown, and Marion Britton, who had also married a Brown sister who had passed away at a fairly young age. The feud led to Britton fatally shooting John Brown in front of the Parker House in uptown Hillsboro in 1888 – but I’m trying rather diligently not to plow the same ground twice.

Britton wanted to marry Mary, and John Brown was vehemently against it, but after the shooting, Mary never married until she married Wesley in 1919 when she was 70 years old. Mary was so distraught by her brother’s tragic demise that she bought a lovely “Weeping Woman” monument for her brother, who lies in repose in the Hillsboro Cemetery.

Sally Barrere’s grandfather, George, was a Civil War veteran, and his dad, John Mills Barrere was also a Civil War veteran who lost an arm in battle and was taken prisoner by the Confederates. And since we’ve gone back that far, John’s dad was Highland County pioneer George Washington Barrere, who was born in 1770, and according to legend, was held by and named after George Washington, who would later become the first president of the United States of America.

So George Washington Barrere (the one born in 1770) is Sally’s great-great-grandfather. He was a state senator, landowner, businessman, postmaster, commissioner, surveyor, judge and soldier. He passed away in 1838 and is buried in the New Market Presbyterian Cemetery.

My granddad’s mother, Lavina, was a Gossett, and was a descendant of John Gossett, who was elected state representative when George Washington Barrere was elected state senator in 1805, and Barrere and Gossett rode to Chillicothe together, which was the capital of Ohio at the time.

(For a related story, see https://highlandcountypress.com/Content/In-The-News/In-The-News/Article/Sally-Barrere-celebrates-birthday-at-Great-American-Ball-Park/2/20/44808)

Steve Roush is vice chairman of the Highland County Historical Society Board of Trustees, a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press. He can be reached by email at roush_steve@msn.com.