Brewer in Mercer County, Kentucky Court Records

Here is a large file of twenty-nine pages of abstracts and notes taken from various sources in Mercer County, Kentucky pertaining to persons named Brewer. It is from the William B. Bogardus Collection, but I do not know the name of the person who did the work, and gathered all of the leads found in this file.

Brewer - Mercer County, Kentucky

Mercer County was formed in 1786, out of what was then Lincoln County, Virginia. Kentucky did not become a separate state until 1792. Settlers from the east, including families with ancestral roots in New Netherland, began settlement in the region that would become Kentucky during the years of the Revolutionary War. Daniel Brouwer, born in 1719, a son of Abraham Brouwer and Lea Demarest of Bergen County, New Jersey, and a great-grandson of Adam Brouwer of Gowanus, Long Island, was among the early settlers in Kentucky. His sister, Rachel Brouwer, born in 1716, was the first wife of Hendrick Banta, a leader of the initial movement of settlers in 1780. (Rachel did not make the move to the Kentucky frontier having died some decades earlier, about 1750).

Low Dutch Station Historic Marker (Wikimedia Commons, 2008)

 As was typical with BROUWER families that moved westward into the new United States, their surname was recorded, almost always, as BREWER. Records pertaining to Daniel Brouwer and his sons, who also settled in Kentucky, are found with the name recorded as BREWER in this file. Most, but not all, of the records mentioned in this large file pertain to descendants of Daniel Brouwer/Brewer. Also found among these records is Samuel Brewer, who died in Mercer County in 1835. He is a brother of Peter Brewer who, through Y-DNA testing of a direct male descendant, is known to be a descendant of Adam Brouwer, but who's lineage from Adam Brouwer is still not known. A Vincent Brewer, and a couple of others who are not placed are also found in this file.

This could be a very useful file for anyone researching the Brewer families who settled in Mercer County, Kentucky. There are transcripts, abstracts and notes on marriages, deeds, wills, and other court documents. It is a large file and had to be placed online using Google Drive. Download the file as it may not be up online forever. Use it as a source for locating the complete records that are mentioned. When conducting your own research, you should always make the effort to locate and examine original records yourself.

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