Bios: JOHN PARKER BREST, 20th Century History of New Castle and Lawrence County Pennsylvania and Representative Citizens
  
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      JOHN PARKER BREST,
  
  John P. Brest[p. 851] a representative citizen of North Beaver Township,
  and an honored veteran of the Civil War, resides on his valuable farm of
  fifty-three acres, which is situated in the Second precinct. He was born
  in Plaingrove Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, August 14, 1840,
  and is a son of David and Catherine (Remley) Brest.
  
  The grandfather, Andrew Brest, was a soldier in the War of 1812.
  Subsequently he came from Westmoreland to Mercer County, where he reared
  a family, acquired property, and finally passed away. David Brest,
  father of John P., was born and died in Mercer County, although he was a
  resident of Lawrence County for a number of years, including the period
  of the Civil War. The Brest family has been one of noted patriotism, and
  a number of the brothers of David Brest, as well as three of his sons,
  were soldiers in the service of their country during the Civil War.
  Washington, Andrew, John and Nathaniel, uncles of John P. Brest, all
  were brave soldiers, three of them being members of the Fifty-seventh
  Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, at the battle of Gettysburg,
  and one a member of the One Hundred and Fortieth Regiment, Pennsylvania
  Volunteer Infantry. Washington Brest, whose name is inscribed with those
  of other heroes on the monumental shaft erected in the National Cemetery
  at Gettysburg, fell at Gettysburg, and his remains lie in an unknown
  grave. His name is also inscribed on the Soldiers' Monument at New
  Castle. Two brothers of John P. Brest, Louis Francis and David W., were
  both members of Company E, Fifty-seventh Regiment, Pennsylvania
  Volunteer Infantry, and both were wounded, though not mortally, at the
  battle of the Wilderness. All these soldiers, including John Parker
  Brest, suffered greatly in the service, but all lived to return home
  with the exception of Washington.
  
  John Parker Brest was reared and educated as a farmer boy, in Plaingrove
  Township. He had just reached his majority and had made plans for his
  future which had nothing to do with the battle field, when the Civil War
  broke out, and he immediately began preparations to go to the front as a
  soldier. On August 27, 1861, he enlisted first, becoming a member of
  Company E, in the famous One Hundredth "Roundhead" Regiment, which made
  such a noble record for courage and efficiency. The commander of his
  company was the brave Captain Bentley, and Mr. Brest contracted to serve
  as a private for three years, although at that time the general opinion
  was that the struggle would not be protracted for so long a period. That
  this hope was soon shattered, our country's records show. After the
  conclusion of his first enlistment, Mr. Brest re-enlisted in the same
  regiment and same company in December, 1863, agreeing to serve for three
  more years. He participated in seventeen battles, many of these being
  the most important ones in the whole war. His regiment was not at
  Gettysburg, at that time being at an equally dangerous point, Vicksburg,
  Miss. He was in every engagement in which his regiment took part until
  on June 2, 1864, when he was so seriously wounded at the battle of Cold
  Harbor that the field surgeon found it necessary to amputate his
  shattered left leg, on the following day. At the previous battle, at
  Spottsylvania, his company had lost thirty-nine men of its one hundred,
  six being mortally wounded and the rest terribly injured, all of the
  officers down to the corporals being among the victims. Promotions were
  made from the ranks, and Mr. Brest was made a corporal, but his own
  injury so quickly followed that he never served in that capacity. He had
  well earned promotion. When the battle was raging and the captain called
  for volunteers to go out on the vedette line, a post of the greatest
  danger, from which even an ordinarily brave man shrank, John P. Brest
  was one of the first to volunteer, and when the order to charge was
  given, he was one of the leaders to break into the Confederate line.
  Other occasions came for him to show his mettle as a soldier, and on no
  occasion did his officers or companions ever find him lacking in
  courage. At the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, his brigade was
  massed and his regiment was ordered to charge on the enemy who had
  captured the first line, and it was the "Roundheads" who swept the
  Confederates back to the bushes, and Mr. Brest was one of the very first
  soldiers to cross the line and make the opening for the brigade who took
  possession of the enemy's works. This was the occasion when, through
  pure courage, he made a notable capture, that of an armed Confederate
  lieutenant and a private, and at the point of the lieutenant's own sword
  he marched them to headquarters and delivered them up as prisoners. This
  sword is now preserved among the archives of the "Roundhead" Regiment.
  
  Several days before the battle of Cold Harbor, when the tired soldiers
  were marching along a Virginia highway, in the wake of a Confederate
  force, Mr. Brest discovered a Confederate knapsack that had been
  discarded by its owner. On investigation into its contents he found a
  small Bible, and this he preserved, and intending to send it home as a
  souvenir he placed it in his haversack. Being compelled to ford a river
  shortly afterward, he put it into his knapsack, in order to protect it
  from getting wet, and this care of the little volume proved to be the
  saving of his life. When he entered the subsequent battle of Cold
  Harbor, the little book was in his knapsack, and after he was so cruelly
  injured and was lying helpless on the battlefield, with shells shrieking
  and exploding over him and rifle balls still doing their fatal work all
  around him, one of the latter struck the knapsack, just where it would
  have passed entirely through the helpless soldier's body had not the
  holy book caused it to glance off, leaving merely a flesh wound behind.
  As may be imagined, this Bible is one of the most valued possessions of
  his children. For eight months after his injury, Mr. Brest was confined
  to the Harwood Hospital, at Washington, D. C., and then returned to his
  little farm in Plaingrove Township.
  
  On March 3, 1864, while on a furlough, Mr. Brest was married to Ruth Ann
  Rodgers, a daughter of Thomas Rodgers, of Plaingrove Township. To this
  union were born nine children, all of whom survive with the exception of
  the eldest and the youngest?Elden E., Harvey Taylor, Clarence O., Elmira
  E., Perry N., Scott Stanley, John E., Margaret L., and Blaine. Elmira E.
  married N. E. Rodgers, and has two children?Ralph Wesley and Treva
  Gertrude. Harvey Taylor married Cora B. Runkle, and had three
  children?Ora L., Harold Clyde and Frederick Stanley, the last mentioned
  being now deceased. Clarence O. married Minnie Odessa Forney, and has
  three children?Ruth, Flora and Nuna Murl. Perry N. married Nettie
  McFate, and has three children?Everett Eugene, Kenneth Lynn, and Charlie
  Leverne. Scott Stanley married Mabel Victoria Leslie, and has one
  child?John Parker Leslie. John E. married Ida Mitchell, and has two
  children?Dorothy Pearl and Frances Leonora. Margaret L. married Charles
  Sylvester Meade, and they have two children?Charles Elden and Thelma
  Margaret.
  
  Mr. Brest moved to Mercer County in 1868, purchasing a property on which
  he resided for some twenty-one years. In 1889 he bought his present farm
  in North Beaver Township, coming to it at that time, and here he has
  been engaged in general farming and fruit growing ever since. He is a
  member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Union Veteran Legion,
  and belongs also to the Protected Home Circle. In politics he is a
  Republican, and is one of the two men elected jury commissioners in
  Lawrence County, his co-worker being a Democrat.
  
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  20th Century History of New Castle and Lawrence County Pennsylvania and
  Representative Citizens Hon. Aaron L. Hazen Richmond-Arnold Publishing
  Company, Chicago, Ill., 1908
  
 Updated: 15 Jan 2002