James Azel Rea

James Azel Rea (1827-1894), my g-g-grandfather, was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and grew up at the Rea homestead on Conococheague Creek in the Amberson Valley of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. In 1840, he migrated, with his family, through Ohio to Wisconsin, where the family settled in Fond du Lac. James later became a hotelier in Oshkosh and built a flour mill, in 1875, in Marshall, Minnesota and another mill in Alaska, Kent County, Michigan in 1889.