Silas
Miner
(1852-1927)
Charles
'Silas'
Miner was born on Nov. 22, 1852 near Humbert, Somerset County, PA, the son of Henry
A. and Matilda (Rose) Miner. During his adult years he used three spellings of the family
name -- Minerd, Miner and Minor. He and his wife met tragic fates together in an
automobile accident.
Silas grew up in the Humbert area, where his father was a stone mason. While in his 20s, he came with his family to Connellsville, Fayette County, drawn by the plentiful jobs in the newly burgeoning coal and coke industry.
It is possible that he married Helen in about 1879 and had a son Albert, and lived in Connellsville. The fates of Helen and Albert are unknown, although she may have died after only about a year, in July 1880, as suggested by a brief article in the Connellsville Keystone Courier (July 30, 1880): "Mrs. Cyrus Minor died at her residence near the steel works, Tuesday night, and was buried Wednesday in Hill Grove cemetery."
On July 3, 1883, at age 31, Silas married 18-year-old Rachel (Pritchard) Dublin (1864-1927) at the home of his sister Mary Ann Richter. Rachel's first husband had been Charles W. Dublin, and she brought a daughter, Fannie B. Dublin, to the marriage. Silas and Rachel had nine children of their own -- Elmer F. Miner, George H. Minor, William Dewey Miner, Emery "Franklin" Miner, Bruce Wesley Miner Sr. and Aaron "David" Minord, along with perhaps two other unidentified children who died young.
In 1882 the Miners bought a house in his parents' neighborhood on North Avenue in Connellsville. A year later, they sold it to nephew John N. Rose. For many years they lived near the Washington school house on the Swaugertown Road. Among their neighbors were distant cousins Henry and Eliza (Swink) Miner.
Silas also served as a trustee of the Evangelical Association. In 1909, the trustees
purchased a tract of land in Poplar Grove for use "as a place of divine
worship."
Silas is believed to have worked as a laborer at the Leisenring No. 1 coke ovens near Uniontown circa 1895. Seen here is a rare old photograph postcard, showing the Leisenring No. 1 ovens, railcars and laborers of that hard-edged era. The ovens were owned by the H.C. Frick Coke Co., which later was merged into United States Steel Corporation.
Circa 1888, Silas lent $127 to his sister and brother in law, Mary Ann and Robert Richter. When they failed to make the promised repayment, he sued in the Fayette County Court of Common Pleas, and won the judgment in his favor.
Sadly, the Miners suffered through the loss of four of their offspring. While at Leisenring in 1895, infant son George died of "congestion of the brain." He was buried at Point of Rocks near Moyer. Four years later, 10-month-old son William died of pneumonia at Swaugertown, and also was buried at Point of Rocks. In 1918, son Elmer (1886-1918) died at age 31 of "a lingering illness" and was buried in an unmarked grave at Hill Grove Cemetery. Elmer had recently registered for the military draft during World War I, stating he was unemployed and had suffered the loss of one eye.
In 1902, Rachel's daughter Fannie B. Dublin married Silas' brother Enoch Miner. The marriage lasted about 10 rocky years. In 1912, Fannie left home and "ran away" with her step-cousin, Elmer Ellsworth Miner, son of Silas' brother John Ross Miner. Fannie later married Elmer, and they changed their last name to "Moody" (the maiden name of Elmer's mother). Fannie and Elmer may have had a son, Samuel Miner, who was residing at Poplar Grove circa 1923. Tragedy compounded this trouble, when Fannie died in Pittsburgh in 1923, at age 42. The funeral was held in Silas and Rachel's home, and she was buried at Hill Grove.
In July 1919, Rachel underwent surgery at the West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh for an unspecified ailment. While recovering there, her son Emory and his wife drove to Pittsburgh to visit her. Said the Daily Courier, "She is getting alone nicely and expects to be able to return home in two weeks."
Silas and Rachel attended the 1920 Minerd Reunion at the Ferncliff Hotel in Ohiopyle, and were among the cousins photographed in the group that day. He also was mentioned in a related newspaper article about the reunion in the Connellsville Daily Courier.
Tragically,
the couple was killed in an auto accident in the wee morning hours of Christmas Eve 1927. Son Emery
and his girlfriend had driven them to visit relatives at Fairbank near New
Salem, Fayette County. While rounding a "bad curve ... passing
another machine," said the Daily Courier, their car
skidded from the highway and plunged down a steep embankment. Silas, who
had a fractured leg, and Rachel, with a fractured skull and internal injuries, were
taken to the Uniontown Hospital, where they died. A coroner's inquest
exonerated Emery "from all blame."
Son
Emory Franklin "Frank" Minor (1884-1947) was "a great big strong able bodied man" who had an
explosive temper. He was employed as a coal
miner, pumper and crane operator at the Sligo Mine at the Davidson Works of the
H.C. Frick Coke Co. On Jan. 2, 1907, he married Goldie Saer (1883- ? ) who was
three years older than he, and the daughter of Filmore and Eliza Saer. They had
at least one daughter, Sarah Miner, born Oct. 7, 1907. They boarded with her
aunt at Swaugertown. In 1913 and then again in 1914, Emery left Goldie, the
second time going to find employment in Newburg, NY. She sued for non-support,
leading to his arrest and newspaper headlines as well as his admittance to a
"work house." She found work doing washing and housecleaning, with the
special ongoing assignment of cleaning the picture gallery of "Squire
Howard" in Connellsville. He escaped from law enforcement officers, joined
the US Army, and was soonafter shipped to Mexico. They were divorced in 1916.
Emery returned to Connellsville, where he was honorably discharged from the
military in May 1917. In 1919, he again was arrested for domestic
violence, which made news in the Daily Courier. The federal census of
1920 shows he was cohabitating with "Elva" (?). Later in life,
sometime before 1930, Emery
married Blanche Wilson ( ? - ? ). They had no children. The couple is shown on
the 1930 federal census of Fayette County, residing at the Sligo Works, with his
unmarried brother David Aaron Minord living under their roof. Frank was a pall bearer at the funeral of his
uncle John Ross Miner in 1935. Said the Daily
Courier, "For a number of years, he had been a desk clerk at the
Arlington Hotel in North Pittsburg Street." In the 1940s, the Minors lived
in Poplar Grove. On Aug. 6, 1947, while attending a dance in the Ivory Ballroom
of the Woolworth Building in Uniontown, Frank suffered a heart attack while
climbing the stairs to the second floor. He died shortly thereafter. They are believed to be buried at the Mt.
Olive Cemetery in Bullskin Twp. near Connellsville.
Son Bruce Miner Sr. (1903-1957) was a laborer who married Anna Christian (1907-1984) in about 1926, when he was age 20 and she 16. She was the daughter of Charles "Karl" and Mary (Pendroh) Christian, emigrants from Hungary. The Miners had six children -- Charles, Anna, Madeline, Patricia, Edith and Bruce Jr. Bruce was a coal miner in Connellsville. When the federal census was taken in 1930, the Miners made their home in Connellsville, with Anna's widowed father residing in the household, just two doors down from Bruce's cousin, Martha Miner (daughter of Enoch Miner Sr.). In 1931, while swimming in the Youghiogheny River at Stony Point, Bruce and Anna were rescued from drowning by young cousins Russell and Melvin Evans (the great-grandsons of Jennie [Miner] Paolone), with the news reported in the Monessen Daily Independent. The Miners later separated, and Bruce Sr.'s whereabouts and final fate were not known to his children for many years. California death records on RootsWeb.com show that he passed away in Los Angeles, CA on Sept. 18, 1957, at the age of 52. Anna later married John Garella and resided in Morrell, Fayette County. She worked for many years in the dietary department of Connellsville State General Hospital, and was a member of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church of Connellsville. She passed away on Oct. 29, 1984, at the age of 77, and is buried in the Brownsville Cemetery.
Son David Aaron Minord (1906- ? ) was a laborer who resided with his brother Emory Franklin Minor at the Sligo Works in Connellsville in 1930, as shown on the federal census. David later married Beulah Thrash (1908-1992), a native of West Virginia. They initially spelled the name "Minor." After moving to Cuyahoga Falls near Cleveland, sometime before 1929, David began to receive mail intended for a local judge by the same name. To clear up the confusion, he added the "d" back onto the family name, giving it a truly unique spelling -- "Minord." Tragically, their son David L. Minord died in Cleveland in 1949 at the age of 19, and was buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Twinsburg, OH. Beulah was a dressmaker, and apparently worked in this field as a widow, residing in Columbus, Franklin County, OH. She died at the age of 84 at Mt. Carmen Hospital-East in Columbus on Feb. 1, 1992.
Grandson in law Griffith Sullivan (1926-1983) was "a manager of the Kirby Company of Morgantown, was a World War II veteran serving in the U.S. Army and was commander of the John L. Frazier Post 9916," said the Morgantown (WV) Dominion-Post.
Copyright © 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007-2008 Mark A. Miner