Bridges in the USA

At age eight, Barnet Welsh moved from Virginia to Licking County, Ohio, where he lived for ab out thrity years. There, he married Mary Overturf, and in 1847 they and a few neighbors meade d south and west, eventually settling west of Bolivar, in Polk County.

Barnet was a Union sympathizer who signed a loyalty oath during the Civil War; he even name d one of his sons Franz Sigel Welsh, after Union Gener Franz Sigel, who was instrumental in k eeping Missouri out of the Confederacy, yet who later proved to be a very ineffective battl e general in the Shenandoah Valley in the late stages of the war.

Barnet fathered fifteen children, nine by Mary, and the remaininb six by his secon sife Ruthi e Minerva Garrison. With wife Mary, he sired Lucinda (1830), Jeremian (1832), William (1835) , James Jesse (1838), George W. (1840), Hiram (1842), Mary K. (1845), Sarah J. (1847), and Jo hn (1851); with Ruthie, he sired David M. (1858), Franz Sigel (1861), Robert L. (1864), Nor a (1866), Lanette (1868) and one who died young.

Barnet died in 1887, after a long illness. He is buried in the Welsh Cemetery, as are his wiv es.