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Henry Miner was born in about 1807, most likely

The rest of this biography is conjectural, based on evidence found to date, but is not yet proven with precision.

Henry is believed to have married Matilda Morton (1808- ? ). The ceremony took place on March 10, 1833, in Muskingum County, OH, by the hand of J. Goshen. This marriage is recorded in the book, Muskingum County, Ohio, Marriages Book II, published by the Muskingum County Genealogical Society. 

Matilda was a native of Maine. Her parents are not yet known.

The Miners had four known children, and perhaps more -- Samuel Dawson Miner, Robert Sanford Miner, Eunice "Flora" Cummings Sayle and Catherine "Kate" Hill Newton.

During the 1830s through the 1850s, when the federal census was enumerated, the family resided in Putnam Township, Muskingum County, OH. In 1850, Henry was listed as a "boatman."

In 1852, the family migrated to Indiana, settling in or near Attica, Fountain County. They were among of a number of cousin-families to migrate as pioneer settlers of Indiana in the early to mid 1800s.

When the census was taken in 1870, the Miners lived in Logan Township, Fountain County. Henry, age 61 at the time, made a living as a "bridge tender." Henry is believed to have died sometime in the decade between 1870 and 1880. 

Matilda survived Henry, and made her home with their married daughter Kate Hill in Delphi, Carroll County, IN when the federal census was taken in 1880. 

Their final fates are not yet known, but they purchased lots in the Riverside Cemetery in Attica, IN, and it's presumed (but not proven) that they rest there for eternity. Evidence circa 1888 suggests that Matilda may have spent her final years in California with one of her sons or daughters. 

In May 2009, a search of the vast genealogical archives at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne -- specifically its holdings of Fountain County vital statistics volumes -- found no mention of Henry in records of deaths (1882-1920), marriages (1848-1920), cemetery inscriptions, wills (1827-1851) and the Civil War draft (1864). The only reference to the family was found in the History of Fountain County, published in 1881 and authored by H.W. Beckwith, citing son Robert Sanford Miner as a member of the Attica lodge of the Masons.

~ Son Samuel Dawson Miner ~

Son Samuel Dawson Miner (1837-1906) was born on April 7, 1837 in Putnam, Muskingum County, OH. As an adult, he stood 5 feet, 5 inches tall, and weighed 150 lbs. He had a dark complexion and brown eyes, with dark brown hair. Before the Civil War, he worked as a clerk in a merchant store. After the war broke out, he served in two Ohio regiments -- the 88th Ohio Infantry (Company A), enlisting in Lafayette, IN; and the 9th Ohio Cavalry (Company A), enlisting in Zanesville, OH. While in the line of duty at Waynesboro, GA in the fall of 1864, he was thrown into a ditch by his horse, and then crushed by the horse, in a charge ordered by General Kilpatrick against Wheeler's Cavalry. The freak accident injured him including "a weakness in the rectum," he wrote. He was bedridden for two months in Knoxville in 1865, and never fully recovered, suffering extreme hemorrhoid problems in later years. After being discharged at the end of the war, he moved to Knoxville, TN. 

Samuel married Louise Lones in Knoxville in 1864. The Miners had three children -- Harry Miner (born 1865), Maude G. Abbott (born 1868) and Charlie Miner (born 1870). 

Samuel and Louise spent the first seven years after the war in Knoxville. There, he was a partner in a business venture with Major Lewis Bowlus, a friend from their old military regiment. The company included a pottery at the foot of Gay Street near the Tennessee River, which produced stoneware. A typical river-side mill in Knoxville, during the Civil War, is seen at right in a rare sketch published in Harper's Weekly.

According to research done by P. Edward "Eddy" Pratt, an attorney and collector in Knoxville, Samuel sold a part interest to his brother Robert, who in turn sold an interest to Hugh French. The operation was located in a warehouse in what was then and still is now the main business district of Knoxville. The pottery apparently was destroyed in March 1867 during a week-long flood in which the Tennessee River swept away bridges and businesses. While the warehouse itself was not destroyed, there was sufficient damage to end the pottery business.

The Bowlus, Miner & French company produced the rare, excellent example seen at left, one of only two known surviving pieces. It is stamped, "Bowlus, Miner & French, Manufacturers, Knoxville, Tenn." (Click for an enlarged view -- our "Photo of the Month" for June 2007.)

Leaving Knoxville in 1872, Samuel migrated westward to Kansas; and thence to Fort Scott, CO; San Juan Country, CO; and Fresno (1895), San Francisco (1896-1899) and Oakland, CA (1899). In 1903, while residing in San Diego, San Diego County, CA, he worked in the oil business and as a real estate agent.

At right, a postcard image of San Diego from about the time Samuel made his home there.

Samuel died in San Diego on Dec. 4, 1906, or on Jan. 9, 1906 (the dates differ), at the age of 69, of "acute alcoholic poisoning." His official death certificate gives his father's name as "Samuel Miner" rather than "Henry Miner," with "Mrs. E.F. Barlow" as the source of the information, so this disparity is being explored further. Samuel's final resting place is believed to be the Masonic Cemetery in San Diego. Samuel's pension paperwork file still exists today in the National Archives in Washington, DC, with a copy in the Minerd-Minard-Miner-Minor Archives.

~ Son Robert Sanford Miner ~

Son Robert Sanford Miner (1840-1918) claimed his own birthplace as Putnam, near Zanesville, Muskingum County, OH. He came with his parents and brother to Fountain County, IN in 1852, at the age of 12. As an adult, he married Angie Sherman (1848-1935), a native of Maine, on June 8, 1869 in Fountain County, IN. He was a veteran of the Civil War, having first served in the 10th Indiana Infantry, Company G. His tour of duty lasted from Sept. 18, 1861 to Sept. 19, 1864. Said the San Jose (CA) Mercury newspaper, he "served his three years' enlistment ... as a member of Co. G, 10th Indiana Infantry volunteers. He was honorably discharged with the rank of first sergeant. After his discharge he re-enlisted for the period of the war, and became a member of Hancock's veteran corps, enlisting in Nashville Tenn., his total service in the Army being four and a half years." In later years, Robert applied for and received a federal pension in later years as compensation for his Civil War disabilities. 

In the 1870 federal census, the Miners lived in Attica, Fountain County, with a two-month-old son Ralph W. Miner, at a time when Robert was employed as a clerk in a grocery store. Circa 1881, he was one of 73 members of the Attica Lodge of the Masons, and was mentioned in this capacity in the book, History of Fountain County, published in 1881 and authored by H.W. Beckwith.

From Attica, said the Mercury, he went "to Illinois, and then became a resident of Fresno in this state. In 1900 he returned to Chicago, and in 1903 came to San Jose, where he has since resided." By 1910, when Robert was 69, they were still in San Jose, Santa Clara County, residing at 310 South Eighth Street. Robert passed away on Oct. 14, 1918, at the age of 72. He was laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery, with pallbearers including C.L. Burdick, W.B. Coates, J.P. Fulmer, S.A. Seymour, L.A. Talcott and S. Williams. His obituary, published in the San Jose and Fresno newspapers, said he "will be greatly missed by a large number of warm friends, especially those of the San Jose families of old soldiers, he at the time of his death being an honored member of the Sheridan-Dix Post, G.A.R." After his death, Angie began receiving the federal pension payments and then sometime before 1930 married Henry P. Salisbury ( ? -1934), himself a Civil War veteran of the 15th Kansas Cavalry. 

Henry died in Santa Clara County on Jan. 7, 1934, and Angie passed away the following year, on March 25, 1935. Angie's brief obituary was published in the Oakland Tribune newspaper. The file of Robert's pension paperwork today is in the custody of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Miners' son Ralph was manager of the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company of Napa, CA, circa 1912.

~ Daughter Kate (Miner) Hill Newton ~

Daughter Kate (1849-1931) was born in March 1849 in Ohio and migrated with her parents to Indiana as a young girl. She married John Hill (1849- ? ). The wedding took place in Fountain County, IN on May 16, 1871. They had at least one son, Charles Lawrence Hill. In 1880, when the federal census was taken, the Hills resided in Delphi, Carroll County, IN, where John worked as a baker. Residing in their household that year was Kate's 72-year-old mother, Matilda.

Kate later migrated to Northern California and married (?) Newton. She lived in Fresno circa April 1893. In 1900, as a widow, she resided with her son Charles in the household of her married sister, Eunice Sayle in Fresno County, CA. She remained in the Sayle residence over the years, including a move to Oakland, Alameda County, CA by 1920. 

In 1917, she signed an affidavit with her brother Robert testifying in the Civil War pension application of their sister Flora. The 1930 census shows Kate (age 82) living with widowed sister Flora Sayle (age 88) and unmarried nephew Ralph W.C. Sayle (49) in Oakland, Alameda County, CA. 

Kate died in San Francisco no Jan. 20, 1931. A short obituary in the Oakland Tribune said she was "loving mother of Charles L. Hill, Balboa Beach, California, only sister of Mrs. E. Flora Sayle, aunt of Mrs. Ethel C. Wright, Mrs. Agatha G. Southern, Ralph W. Sayle and Ralph W. Miner, of San Francisco." Her burial site is not known.

Son Charles Lawrence Hill (1875- ? ) resided in Balboa Beach, CA circa 1918. He married Ethel B. (?) and was a traveling salesman for the Paraffin Company.

~ Daughter Eunice Flora (Miner) Cummings Sayle ~

Daughter Eunice "Flora" Cummings Sayle (1842-1939) moved from Ohio to Knoxville, TN, and thence to Northern California in the 1870s. Her first husband was Dr. Ralph Wardlow Cummings (1832-1880), a native of Minnesota, and the son of Rev. Dr. Asa and Phoebe (Johnson) Cummings of Maine. Ralph's father, a graduate of Harvard College, was a Christian pastor and editor of the Christian Mirror (circa 1826) who died in Panama in 1856 and was buried at sea.

Flora and Ralph's wedding took place on March 13, 1865, in Knoxville, following Ralph's discharge from the Army at the close of the Civil War. Performing the ceremony was John A. Bowman, a hospital chaplain.

Ralph was a widower, whose first wife Alice Illsley Waterhouse had died on Dec. 5, 1857, without having had any children. One of Ralph's sisters had married Rev. Joseph Rowell, who was a lifelong friend of Alice, Ralph and Flora, and later testified on Flora's behalf in a question over Ralph's Civil War pension.

Ralph was a graduate of Bowdoin College and the New York Medical College (1856) who became editor and publisher in 1858 of the Maine Medical and Surgical Journal. During the Civil War, he served with the 23rd Michigan Infantry and later as surgeon of the 1st Colored Heavy Artillery. From July 28, 1862 to March 31, 1866, he was first sergeant and assistant surgeon of the 23rd Michigan, always present with the regiment except for February 1864, when he was on detached service in Knoxville, TN, examining recruits.

Following the war, Ralph was a physician in Bay City, MI; life insurance and claim agent in Knoxville, TN (1867); a pharmacist in Minneapolis, MN (1870); and associate editor of the Minneapolis Evening Times and News newspaper (1873). In 1873, while in Minneapolis, Ralph served as a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and is mention in the November 1873 edition of The Missionary Herald. Sometime between 1873 and 1880, they moved to California and is said to have edited a newspaper in Benicia, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco. His career history is summarized in the 1903 book The Cummings Memorial, compiled by Rev. George Mooar and published by B.F. Cummings.

The Cummingses had six children -- Ethel Morton Wright, born in Tennessee in 1868; Malanie Noyes Cummings, born in 1870 in Michigan; Kate Weil Cummings, born in 1874 in California; Theodore Melville Cummings, born in 1877 in San Francisco, Agatha Gray Southern; and Ralph Wardlow Sayle Cummings. Daughter Agatha was born when the family lived in the Colony Tract of Central California in May 1878, and present at the birth were George A. Fuller and Lucy Jane Rucker. Son Ralph Jr. was born in Alameda in May 1880, with Sarah Oliver and Ethel M. Wright witnessing the birth.

Flora and Ralph and their family eventually resided at 209 Gough.

Sadly, Ralph died in San Francisco as he neared his 48th birthday on Aug. 17, 1880, of "disease of brain," stated his death certificate. He was laid to rest in the Oakland Cemetery. Three of the children also died young -- Malanie on Sept. 28, 1880, just a little more than a month after her father; Kate at age two on July 8, 1876; and Theodore at the tender age of four days on June 12, 1877.

A year after Ralph's passing, on May 31, 1881 in San Francisco, Flora married her second husband, Judge Claudius Galon Sayle (1826-1910). He was the son of Samuel and Olivia (King) Sayle and a native of Carroll County, TN, where he had grown up on his father's plantation. Performing the ceremony was Flora's former brother in law, Rev. Joseph Rowell, pastor of the Mariners Church. Witnesses were Sarah Cummings and Phebe B. Weil, both of San Francisco.

Claudius also was a widower, his first two wives Corilla (Stevenson) Bacon and Amanda Newton Burke having passed away at young ages.

He is profiled in the book, Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, California, Illustrated (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company), which was also published verbatim in the History of Fresno County, California (Wallace W. Elliott & Co., 1882). 

Judge Sayle achieved wealth early in his life in a coal mining venture on the Kern River in what is now Mariposa County, CA. He later went into merchandising in Los Angeles, and was elected one of the first Supervisors of Tulare County, CA in the mid-1850s. In the fall of 1860, he was elected Judge of Tulare County, a position in which he served until the completion of his term in January 1864. In 1864, as the Civil War raged, he was elected District Attorney of Fresno County, which he held for eight years. In 1879, he was elected as a member of the first legislature after the adoption of the New Constitution of California.

Flora and Claudius Sayle's marriage certificate, on file today at the National Archives in Washington, DC

Flora and Claudius resided in Fresno in a "little home" at the corner of J and Tuolumne Streets. When he celebrated his 55th birthday in 1881, Claudius legally adopted his young stepson, Ralph Wardlow Cummings Jr. Said the History of Fresno County, "He fixed his adopted name as Ralph Wardlow Sayle Cummings; he being the only boy, he did not want to take his father's name away, hence he left Cummings after Sayle." 

The adoption matter was important because young Ralph "was crippled in 1892 by a bad fall from a horse," wrote his sister Agatha. "He is also mentally deficient tho not an idiot by any means but he is entire dependent on others for his maintenance." Because of Judge Sayle's great wealth, it was assumed that he would always provide for the boy. "But he lost all his money before he died and Mamma was dependent on her pension for the support of herself and Ralph," Agatha said. 

In fact, Claudius used the $2,000 inheritance of his one-year-old stepson to use as a loan in connection with real estate ventures involving the Strobridge Land Syndicate and Pacific Improvement Company. This was done without the legal approval of the court that had appointed him as the boy's guardian. The investment failed to produce a return and was considered an entire loss. Some 20 years later, Ralph and his mother sued Claudius and the real estate development companies to regain the funds. After a lower case ruled in favor of Ralph, and called the loan "embezzlement, the case was appealed to and heard by the Supreme Court of California, which overturned the decision in January 1907.

Stereoview of the heart of San Francisco's business ruins, showing the remains of the Call and Rialto buildings at the intersection of Second and Howard Streets

On April 18, 1906, the Sayleses would have experienced the tragic effects of the San Francisco earthquake. It lasted only about one minute, but registered 8.25 on the Richter scale. Hundreds of people were killed, and hundreds of thousands of others were left homeless.

Controversy enveloped the family later in 1906, when the judge's sons in law H.E. Wright (married to Ethel) and Rev. Ward (married to Agatha) brawled over the paternity of Wright's daughter Marguerite. Wright's wife informed him that their brother in law Rev. Ward was claiming to be the father of the Wrights' daughter. Furious, Wright traveled to San Jose by train and asked Judge Sayle to verify the rumor. When confirmed, Wright then sought out Rev. Ward and punched him twice in the face, whereupon Ward "struck Wright on the head, inflicting a gash," reported the Oakland Tribune. Rev. Ward, "who was on his way to the First Baptist Church, fled to the station house and thence to the house of Judge Wallace, where he swore to a complaint against Wright. The latter deposited bail. Hundreds witnessed the trouble, and San Jose has something to talk about for a month."

Claudius passed away on May 11, 1910, at their home at 330 South 5th Street in San Jose. He was buried at Cypress Lawn Cemetery near San Francisco.

San Jose's Market Street, circa 1909

Eunice resided at 3215 Florida Street in Oakland, and later with her married daughter Agatha at 1242 17th Avenue in San Francisco in her last years. The 1930 census shows her at age 88 heading a household in Oakland, Alameda County, which also included son Ralph and widowed sister Kate (age 82). She died at the age of 96, of pneumonia and hardening of the arteries, on Jan. 30, 1939. Her remains were cremated, and she was laid to rest in the Mt. View Cemetery in Oakland.

• Son Thomas Wardlaw Wright, Sr. (1893-1953) -- seen at right -- married Hildred C. Church (1901-1985) in 1921 in Honolulu, HI. They had two known children -- Thomas Wardlaw Wright Jr. and Peter C. Wright, both born in the Philippine Islands. Thomas was employed by the Southern Pacific Company (1907) and Associated Oil Company in San Francisco (1914) before being transferred to the oil firm's Honolulu office in 1917. In 1921, he was pictured and profiled in the book, Men of Hawaii, Vol. II, edited by John William Siddall, and published by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. By 1930, Thomas and Hildred returned to California, making their home in Alameda, Alameda County, where they apparently spent the remainder of their lives. Thomas died at the age of 60 on March 11, 1953 in Alameda County. Hildred outlived her husband by more than three decades. She died in Monterey, CA on Jan. 4, 1985.
• Daughter Claudia C. Wright was married to (?) Janochka in 1910. 
• Daughter Helen K. Wright (1894- ? ) married (?) Tenney. By 1930, she was divorced, had taken back her maiden name, and was residing with her mother in San Francisco. That year, she was employed as a statistician with an insurance company.

...engaged in concert work on the Pacific coast. She writes, "I have a large class and find your magazine very helpful. I have presented a number of you pantomimes with unrivaled success, 'The Song of the Mystic' and 'Lacy Clare" making an immense hit." A sample program of hers is entitled "An Evening of Mirth and Melody," and includes as recitations, "When Jack Comes Late," "Mammy's Li'l Boy," Trying the Rose Act;" and as songs, "When the Heart Is Young," "Slumber Sea" and Tosti's "Good Bye." Her circular telling of her as a platform artist is unusually attractive.

Agatha was married twice. Her first husband was Rev. (?) Ward ( ? - ? ), whom she wed in about 1903, when she was age 25. They had a daughter, Marguerite Ward. Circa 1905, the Wards "went East, and he preached while she sang. They quarreled and she returned home. A divorce suit was brought, and troubles have been brewing ever since," said the Oakland Tribune (Aug. 5, 1906). By 1910, Agatha had divorced Rev. Ward and was remarried to Elmer Thomas Southern (1873- ? ), a native Californian whose parents were emigrants from England. Elmer, having been married once before, brought a daughter to his marriage with Agatha -- Gallan Southern (born in Ohio in 1906). Elmer and Agatha went on to have two children of their own -- John R. "Jack" Southern (born in 1910 in California) and Billie M. Southern (born 1923 in California). Between 1914 and 1922, and perhaps earlier and later, Agatha is known to have given readings to benefit the East Oakland Settlement, located in the city's cotton mill district, which "many of the most philanthropic women of the east bay cities are interested in ...," said the Oakland Tribune. The Southerns made their home in San Francisco circa 1918, where Elmer owned and taught the Southern's School of Acting. The 1920 federal census shows the family living on 18th Avenue in San Francisco. Agatha is known to have resided at 1242 17th Avenue in San Francisco circa 1939. She died in San Mateo County, CA at the age of 91 on June 19, 1969.

More will be added here when learned and proven. 

Many thanks to Krystal Kelley and Eddy Pratt for freely sharing a wealth of their research material.

Copyright © 2006-2007, 2009 Mark A. Miner