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	J. F. NEER.     J. F. Neer, one of the best-known members of the present generation of this honored old family of Champaign county, was born on the farm now owned by J. P. Neer, a mile and a half east of Heathstown, in Concord township, Mar. 29, 1850, a son of Joseph and Margaret S. (Monroe) Neer.  The father was a native of Virginia and at an early date came with his parents to this county, the family thus being among the early pioneers of Concord township, and well known here for a century.  Margaret S. Monroe was born in Harrison township, this county, of which her parents were also pioneers, coming here from Pennsylvania.  They were of Scottish descent.  After his marriage Joseph Neer settled on the farm in Concord township, where his son, J. F. Neer, was born and there he and his wife spent the rest of their lives.  He was one of the successful farmers and useful citizens of his township, becoming quite well-to-do for those days, through his able management and close application.  He was a Republican, and a member of the Concord Methodist Episcopal church, in which he was a pillar for many years.  His family consisted of twelve children, namely: Flora, now living in California, widow of J. W. Ellis; David C., who lives in Allen county, Kansas; Mrs. Tillie Oppenbacker, deceased; John, who lives in Urbana; Mrs. Mollie Neer, deceased; Nathan, who lives in Pasadena, California; Sallie, the wife of L. Clemmon; J. F., the subject of this sketch; Mrs. Mary McMaster, who lives in Los Angeles, California; Samuel, who lives in Green River, Utah; James, who lives in Winfield, Kansas, and one child who died in infancy unnamed.      J. F. Neer was reared on the home farm and received a common school education.  He remained with his parents until his marriage, June 26, 1881, to Lydia A. Bricker, a daughter of Isaac and Martha J. (Clark) Bricker.  Mr. Bricker was born in the Shenandoah valley, Virginia, and there he spent his boyhood.  When a young man he came with his parents to Champaign county, Ohio, the trip being made overland in an old-fashioned covered wagon.  He was one of nine children.  The family located in Concord township and here he met and married Martha Clark, who was a native of Adams township, Champaign county, where her parents settled in pioneer days.      After his marriage J. F. Neer went to Iola, Allen county, Kansas, where they remained a year, then returned to Champaign county and located on a farm near the old home place in Concord township, buying one hundred and sixty acres, but he remained there only one year then bought the place he now occupies, and has carried on general farming and stock raising here with success.  His farm is well improved and well adapted to general agricultural purposes and he raises considerable live stock.  Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Neer, namely:  Charles F., who married Nettie Jenkins, and lives in Rosewood, this county; Samuel, who is at home, assisting his father with the work on the farm, and John P., who died when eleven years of age.  Mr. Neer is a Republican.  He is a member of the Concord Methodist Episcopal church. Source:  History of Champaign County, Ohio, Vol. II - publ. 1917 - Page 1035
J. P. Neer Mrs. J. P. Neer Home & Barn	JOHN PRINGLE NEER.     John Pringle Neer, one of Champaign county's most substantial farmers and landowners, an honored veteran of the Civil War, and former member of the board of county commissioners, now living- retired at Urbana, where he has extensive banking and manufacturing interests, is a native son of this county and has lived here all his life.  He was born on a farm in Concord township on Apr. 27, 1842, son of Joseph and Margaret Susan (Monroe) Neer, early settlers in that section of the county, whose last days were spent on their farm there.      Joseph Neer was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, Aug. 7, 1804, and there grew to manhood, remaining there until after he had attained his majority, when, in 1826, he came over into Ohio, locating near Catawba, working as a cabinet-maker.  He returned to Virginia then in 1831 and bought a tract of school land in Concord township.  He set about clearing and improving the same, early becoming recognized as one of the most substantial and influential pioneers of that section.  That pioneer farm is now held by the subject of this sketch.  Joseph Neer was also a wagonmaker by trade and did considerable work in that line in early days, as well as a good deal of carpentering in the neighborhood of his home.  On Nov. 10, 1835, nine years after he came to this county, Joseph Neer married Margaret Susan Monroe, who was born on Nov. 27, 1819, daughter of David Monroe and wife, who came to this county from Virginia in pioneer days, and after his marriage he established his home on his Concord township farm.  He and his wife were members of the Methodist church and ever took an earnest part in church work, as well as in the general good works of the community in which they lived.  Mr. Neer originally was a Whig. but upon the formation of the Republican party espoused the principles of the same and cast his vote for John C. Fremont.  His death occurred on Jan. 26, 1869, and his widow survived him for more than ten years, her death occurring on Oct. 8, 1880.  They were the parents of twelve children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the fourth in order of birth, the others being as follow:  David C., a successful farmer in Allen county, Kansas; Ann F., who is now living at Bakersfield, California, widow of James W. Ellis; Eliza M., who died in southern Colorado on Oct. 6, 1875, wife of Judge Joseph Van Offenbacker, who died at Washington D. C., in Jan. 1895; Martha J., who died on Sept. 16, 1870; Nathan A., a retired farmer now living at Pasadena, California; Sallie C. living at Los Angeles, widow of Lowell T. Clemans; Joseph T., who married Lydia A. Bricker and is a well-known farmer in Concord township, this county; Mary F., wife of Charles W. McMaster, of Los Angles; Samuel J., a fruit grower at Green River, Utah; Elizabeth, who died in infancy, and James M., a farmer and stockman in Cowley county, Kansas.      John P. Neer was reared on the old home farm in Concord township, receiving his schooling in the schools of that neighborhood, and was nineteen years of age when the Civil War broke out.  On Aug. 19, 1862, then being but twenty years of age, he enlisted for service in the Union army as a private in Company H, Forty-fifth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, being mustered into the service at Camp Chase at Columbus, and served with that command until he was mustered out with the rank of first lieutenant at Camp Harker in Tennessee, June 12, 1865, the war then being over.  Mr. Neer's first promotion in the ranks was to the position of corporal of his company.  Later to sergeant and then to orderly sergeant, serving with that rank until he received his commission as first lieutenant.  During his long period of service he was a participant in some of the heaviest engagements of the war. including the battles of Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain, Pine Mountain and Lovejoy Station.  One of the first engagements in which he took part was the battle of Dutton Hill, Kentucky, and he also took part in the pursuit of General Morgan, the Confederate cavalry raider, through Indiana and Ohio.  On Oct. 20, 1863, he was a participant in the battle of Philadelphia, Tennessee, in which his regiment lost, in killed, wounded and missing, one hundred and sixty-eight men.  Later the regiment served in the campaign in eastern Tennessee and on November 15 of that same year, at Holston River, lost one hundred and one men, including five officers.  In an engagement two days later, Nov. 17, they had a brisk encounter with the forces of General Longstreet.  In that latter engagement Mr. Neer was shot through the lungs and was taken to a hospital, being unable to join his regiment until after the siege of Knoxville.  From Tazewell, Tennessee, he then went with his regiment to Cumberland Gap and thence on to Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, where he remained about a month, in command of a detail left to guard the town; returning thence to Tennessee by way of Knoxville, he finally proceeded on with the regiment to take part in the Atlanta campaign and was present at the siege of Atlanta.      Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Neer returned to his home in this county and resumed his place on the home farm.  After the death of his father, in 1869, he purchased from the other heirs the greater part of the old homestead and continued to farm the same, gradually adding to his land holdings until he now is the owner of six hundred and eighty acres of well-improved land.  In addition to his general farming Mr. Neer for years gave considerable attention to the raising of high-grade live stock and did very well.  In 1881 he and a party of men went to England and Scotland and imported a number of fine horses.  Some years ago he retired from the farm and moved to Urbana, where he since has made his home.  Mr. Neer is an ardent Republican and has ever taken a good citizen's interest in local political affairs.  From 1885 to 1891 he served as a member of the board of county commissioners and in other ways has contributed of his time and his abilities to the public service.  He is vice-president and a member of the board of directors of the City National Bank of Urbana, is connected with the Mammoth Furniture Company of that city and is also a stockholder and a member of the board of directors of the Urbana Packing-Company.      In 1899 John P. Neer was united in marriage to Ida M. Goble, of Brooklyn, New York, a daughter of Ira and Catherine (Burke) Goble, and who died on Apr. 5, 1911.  Mr. Neer is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and for years has been active in church work.  He is a member of Brand Post No. 98, Grand Army of the Republic, at Urbana, and is now serving his fifth term as commander of the same, for years having been one of the most active members of the local post of that patriotic order. Source:  History of Champaign County, Ohio, Vol. II - publ. 1917 - Page 48
	JONATHAN S. NEER.     Jonathan S. Neer, major of Mechanicsburg and one of the pest-known dairy fanners in Champaign county was born in Pleasant township, in the neighboring county of Clark, Mar. 25, 1851, son of Joseph Coffey and Dorothy (Smith) Neer, natives of that same county and members of pioneer families in this section, the former of whom, an honored veteran of the Civil War, spent his last days in this county and the latter of whom died in Kentucky.      Joseph Coffey Neer also was born in Clark county, Feb. 7, 1829, son of Enos and Sarah (Coffey) Neer, the latter of whom was the first white child horn in Pleasant township, that county, Enos Neer was a Virginian, horn in Loudoun county, who came lo this section of Ohio with his parents when a boy and grew up in Clark county, where he married, established his home in Pleasant township, that county, became a substantial farmer of that neighborhood and there spent the remainder of his life, dying at the age of seventy-five-years.  His widow did not long survive him, her death occurring in the seventy-ninth year of her age.  They were earnest members of the Methodist Protestant church and took a prominent part in the work of creating proper social conditions in the early days of the settlement of the community in which they had their their home.  They were the parents of three children, Joseph Coffey Neer having had a brother, Nathan who was a farmer in Clark and Champaign counties, and a sister, Jane, who was the wife of Newton Lemmon, of Clark county, and who died in Indiana.      Being the eldest of the children in his family, Joseph C. Neer was kept pretty busy on the home farm in the days of his boyhood, the task of clearing the place being no inconsiderable one, and he received but a limited education.  During the progress of the Civil War he enlisted, in 1864, and went to the front as a member of the Sixteenth Ohio, with which command he served for nine months, the greater part of which time was spent on guard duty in the city of New Orleans.  He had married when little more than twenty years of age and he continued to make his home in Clark county until 1868, when he came up into Champaign county and settled on a farm in Goshen township, about three miles from Mechanicsburg, where he lived for nine years, at the end of which time he went to Kentucky, where he bought a farm and where he lived until some little time after his wife died there, when he disposed of his interests in that state and returned to this county, locating at Mechanicsburg, where he spent the rest of his life, his death occurring there in May, 1902, he then being seventy-two years of age.  He was a member of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic and he and his wife were earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal church.  They were the parents of six children, those besides the subject of this sketch being as follow:  Sarah Margaret, who died unmarried; Albert K., who is connected with the offices of the International Harvester Company at Columbus; Fred who is engaged in the creamery business at Milford Center, in the neighboring county of Union, Maude, wife of Clinton Hunter, a farmer living near Mechanicsburg, and Nettie, wife of Elmer Whitmore, now living in California.      Reared on the home farm in Goshen township, Jonathan S. Neer received his early schooling in the schools of that neighborhood and supplemented the same by a course in the Ohio Normal College at Lebanon, Ohio.  At the age of twenty-two, after his marriage, he began farming on his own account, renting a farm in Goshen township, where he made his home for eighteen years, at the end of which time he bought a farm in that township and there resided until the time of his appointment in 1910, as a member of the board of land appraisers, when he moved to Mechanicsburg, where he ever since has made his home and where he and his family are very comfortably situated.  Despite his retirement from the active labors of the farm.  Mr. Neer Continues to maintain one of the finest herds of dairy cattle in the state, having more than sixty head of fine Jersey stock, and also gives considerable attention to the raising of hogs.  It was in 1896 that he began to pay special attention to dairying and he ever since has devoted close attention to that phase of farming, long having had an excellent dairy on his place near Mechanicsburg.  In addition to his service as land appraiser Mr. Neer has given considerable attention to public affairs in other directions, having served for some years as a member of the school board, and is now serving as mayor of Mechanicsburg, to which important executive position he was elected in November, 1915.      It was on Oct. 28, 1875, that Jonathan S. Neer was united in marriage to Emma Darling, a school teacher of this county, who was born in Goshen township, city of Mechanicsburg, a daughter of Sanford and Sarah (Riddle) Darling, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of this county, who were well-to-do farming people of Goshen township. Sanford Darling and his wife were the parents of four children, those besides Mrs. Neer being Charles, deceased; Harry Darling, former mayor of Mechanicsburg, who is engaged in the blacksmith business in that city, and James, who was killed in a railway wreck in the South.      To Jonathan S. and Emma (Darling) Neer six children have been horn, namely: Ethel, who was class instructor in the Miami Valley Hospital at Dayton and who died at the age of thirty-four years; Dorothy, who also was trained in hospital work and is now superintendent of the Robin Hood Hospital at Toledo, having had a varied service in hospital work, including four years in the City Hospital at Cincinnati, head nurse in the hospital at Springfield for ten years, one year as superintendent of a hospital at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a period as assistant superintendent of the New Haven Hospital at New Haven, Connecticut; Frank, who died at the age of seven years; Charles, who took a course in the State Agricultural College and is now operating his father's dairy farm in Goshen township, who married Willora Pratt and has two children, Elizabeth and Virginia; Alice, a former student of the Ohio State University, who married Wilbur Morgan, of Marysville, this state, and has one child, a daughter, Margaret, and Dorris, a graduate of Ohio State University, who is now engaged as a teacher of domestic science in the schools of Columbus.  The Neers are members of the Methodist Protestant church, in the various beneficences of which they take a proper interest.  Mr. Neer is a member of the Grange and has long taken an active interest in the affairs of that organization.  His son, Charles Neer, also is a member of the Grange and is likewise a member of the Mechanicsburg lodge of Masons, taking an active interest in the affairs of both of these organizations; he also is a member of the school board.  Mr. Neer is a public-spirited and energetic business man and his service as mayor of Mechanicsburg has proved very satisfactory to the people of that progressive and hustling little city. Source:  History of Champaign County, Ohio, Vol. II - publ. 1917 - Page 1030
	JOSEPH C. NEER.     Prof. Joseph C. Neer, county superintendent of schools for Champaign county is a native son of this county and has lived here all his life with the exception of a few months during his childhood when he lived in Kansas.  He was born on a farm in Urbana township on Nov. 16, 1875, son of Joseph and Sarah (Chance) Neer, both of whom also were born in this county, the former in Concord township and the latter in Mad River township, both the Neers and the Chances being old pioneer families in Champaign county.  Joseph Neer was a farmer and continued engaged in that vocation in this county until 1876, when he moved with his family to Kansas, where his wife died the same year.  Not long afterward he disposed of his holdings in that state and moved on down into Texas, where he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring some years ago.      Joseph C. Neer was but eight months old when his mother died and shortly after that sad event his father sent him hack to the old family home in this county and he was here reared by his uncle and aunt, Thomas and Jane Hupp.  Upon completing the course in the common schools he began teaching in one of the district schools of Concord township and for four years taught in one district there, the school being conducted in a small one room building.  Meanwhile he was in attendance on the summer courses in Wittenberg College at Springfield and upon completing the course there was graduated from that institution with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.  When the schools of Concord township were consolidated Professor Neer was made superintendent of the township high school and held that position for four years, at the end of which time he was called to accept the principalship of the South Ward school in Urbana. a position he occupied for seven years, rendering such excellent service there that he then was. made principal of the Urbana high school and was occupying that position when, in 1914, upon the creation of the new office of county superintendent of schools, under the new school law, he was elected the first county superintendent of schools for Champaign county, which position he now occupies and in the performance of the duties of which he has rendered a very distinct service in behalf of the schools of this county, coming to be recognized widely as one of the leading school men in this part of the state.  Professor Neer is a Republican in his political affiliation and has for years given his close attention to local political affairs, a most earnest exponent of good government.      On Sept. 8, 1898, Prof. J. C. Neer was united in marriage to Avanell Loudenback, daughter of Elijah and Sidney (Kelly) Loudenback, and to this union has been born one child, a son, Robert.  Professor and Mrs. Neer are members of Grace Methodist Episcopal church and take an earnest interest in the general beneficences of the same, the Professor being a member of the official board of the church.  The Professor is a Knight Templar and Royal Arch Mason, present junior warden of the local Masonic lodge, and is a noble of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, affiliated with Antioch Temple at Dayton, and takes an active interest in Masonic affairs.  As the first incumbent of the office of county superintendent of schools in Champaign county.  Professor Neer faced a rather taxing task upon opening that office and in initiating the system under which the schools of the county have since done such admirable work, but his long experience as a school man and his thorough familiarity with conditions both in the city and county schools, gave him the ability to meet the task intelligently and with full knowledge of the needs of the schools and his course as superintendent has met with the warm approval not only of the patrons of the schools throughout the county, but of the local school authorities. Source:  History of Champaign County, Ohio, Vol. II - publ. 1917 - Page 209

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