Hannah
(Minerd) Gaither
(1848-1924)
Hannah
Maria (Minerd) Gaither was born on Aug. 30, 1848 near Farmington, Fayette County, PA,
daughter of Jesse and Sarah (Smalley) Minerd.
On Dec. 6, 1888, Hannah married farmer William 'Alexander' Gaither (1831-1904). They lived in a large frame house along the National Highway (now U.S. Route 40) at Chalk Hill, PA. They had three children -- Grace Reiber, Stella M. McFarland and Edwin Stanton Gaither Sr.
Active in the community, Alexander was appointed in 1877 as a reviewer of National Road spur construction plans in Wharton Twp. He also was elected constable of the township in 1877 and as judge of elections in 1889. In 1874, the Uniontown Genius of Liberty reported that he had "been unable to do anything for some time on account of a severe cut on the foot, received from an ax."
The Gaithers resided nearby, and were active in helping maintain, the ancient grave of British General Edward Braddock, who was mortally wounded in battle during the French and Indian War. The dying general was brought back to Chalk Hill, where he passed away. Braddock's aide-de-camp, young George Washington, presided over the burial. Washington gave orders that the grave be dug in the middle of the road to keep Indians from exhuming and scalping the corpse. Years later, Braddock's bones were found during road repair, and were reburied among a stand of nearby pine trees.
A
rare sketch of the site, drawn in the early 1840s, is seen here.
According to the artist who sketched this view, "A plain shingle, marked
BRADDOCK'S GRAVE, nailed to the tree where part of the bones are interred, is
the only monument to point out to the traveller the resting place of the proud
and brave but unfortunate hero of the old French war." Click
for more images of the historic burial site.
The 1932 book, Fort Necessity and Historic Shrines of the Redstone Country, published by the Fort Necessity Chapter of the Sons, said that:
In the autumn of 1871 ... the site [was] marked by the planting of an English elm, two English larches, two Norway spruce and the scion from a willow that had been imported from the grave of Napoleon at St. Helena. The group of trees was surrounded by a neat, painted board fence. William A. Gaither, who lived an the adjoining farm, was engaged as caretaker.
In 1913,
a 25-ton granite monument (seen here) was installed on the site, purchased by the Braddock Memorial
Association. (One of Hannah's cousins-in-law, William
A. Stone, was vice president of the association.) The landmark
is a popular tourist stop today and is administered by the National Park
Service as part of the Fort
Necessity National Battlefield.
Alexander died on March 28, 1904. Hannah lived as a widow for more than 2 decades and died on Aug. 8, 1925, at the home of married daughter Grace. They are buried together at Mt. Washington Presbyterian Church at Chalk Hill.
To attend her funeral, brother Daniel Lucas Minerd and two daughters and a son in law left their homes in Iowa to travel to Uniontown. It was only Daniel's second visit to Uniontown in 40 years, said a local newspaper.
In 1925, son Edwin, a World War I veteran, was crushed to death while working on construction of the Cheat Haven Dam at Morgantown, WV. Grandson Edwin S. Gaither, Jr. was a staff physician at Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital, Uniontown Hospital and Aliquippa Hospital in the 1960s, and chief of radiology at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Marion, IL.
Copyright
©
2000, 2002, 2005 Mark A. Miner.
Sketch of Braddock's grave published
in 1843 in Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania by Sherman
Day.