WHO WAS - Jackson A. Proper in Plum Township Venango County, Pennsylvania By Howard Strawbridge November 14, 1956
Jackson A. Proper was born at Diamond on Jan. 5, 1833. He was reared at the Henry Proper home until he was 11 years old, then he took residence at the Daniel D. Proper home south of Diamond until his marriage.
Jackson was given a 50-acre farm by his grandfather when it was all in forest, mostly of pine. It was located immediately southeast of Diamond. He acquired title to these 50 acres in 1854. With a haughty pioneer spirit the young man cleared his farm and burned large heaps of pine logs.
While working as a teamster and hauling oil, he met Nancy Jane Mabus of Maple Hill whom he married in October, 1866. He built a very small house by a spring on his farm. A few rods north of this spring there was another spring which, he didn't at first know about.
In this small house they lived a short while. Before their only child, Imelda Maria Proper (Bearce) was born on Jan. 31, 1868, they moved into the larger empty Cheney house not far away. It then stood across the road and south a bit from the former Robert Kightlinger house. Also while living in the Cheney house, Jackson built what was then considered quite a large barn on his farm. The men who worked on the barn boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Proper in this Cheney house.
Sometime during the early 1870s Mr. Proper erected a large house on his place. Near the present home of Lloyd Thomas, south of Diamond, there stood a house where Thomas Martin, a blacksmith, lived for several years until he moved away in 1870 or '71. Jackson Proper bought this house, tore it down, and hauled the lumber, mostly pine, over to his place and rebuilt it. This is the house now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Jackson M. Bearce.
In 1879 Mr. Proper bought an additional 20 acres on the north side of his farm from Robert Kightlinger.
People generally knew him as 'Jack'. His middle name was Andrew. He was rather short and thin in size, and was quick-spoken and wiry. He was a good looking man. In religion he had long been a Spiritualist. He was a very good neighbor, always helping his neighbors at threshing time as well as on other occasions. Many times, to the disgust of his wife, he would leave his own work to go and help somebody else.
At that time the "pepperbox" thresher, which was run by horsepower, was in use to feed the grain into these machines a man had to know and do his part well. Mr. Proper was known as one of the best 'feeders' for these machines in the area. People would come quite a distance to hire Jack Proper to feed their threshing machines.
During the wintertime Mr. Proper hired a man and they worked in the woods, cutting and making stave bolts. He boarded the hired man, too. Then Mr. Proper would haul the bolts to Titusville where he received $1.25 a cord for them delivered.
It is still remembered of Mr. Proper in his later years driving a nice team of grey horses hitched to a 'two-seated buggy with the fringe on top.'
He was sick off and on during the last 17 years of his life with stomach and gland trouble. During these sick spells Mrs. Proper would take charge of the farming activities. For instance, she oversaw the work of enlarging their cellar to be under the whole front of the house. Eli Noel and his sons of Luce's Corners laid the stone wall for this cellar.
In the spring of 1904 Mr. Proper had a stroke, followed by a second one in about six weeks, and finally by the third and final one in a week or 10 days later which took him on June 3.
He was buried on Sunday, June 5. All the people couldn't get into the house during the funeral, and many were seated out in the front yard and listened to the sermon.
His widow stayed on the farm until 1913 when she moved to Titusville. There she died on Nov. 28, 1941, at the ripe age of 93, surviving her husband by more than 37 years.
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