Henry
Minerd
(1813-1906)
Henry Minerd was born
on Oct. 7, 1813 (or 1814) near Scio, Harrison County, OH , the son of John and Mary
Magdalena (Kohl) Minard Sr. He was a pioneer settler of western Ohio and
eastern Indiana, and at his death, an Indiana newspaper said he was "one of
the best known and most highly respected citizens of this part of Allen
county..." The newspaper added that "No better or purer
man ever lived in this section than 'Uncle Henry Miner,' and no word of reproach
was ever uttered against his character. He lived as he passed away. In life to
do good, to please and assist, especially in hours of sickness and distress,
[to] all man kind. In death to please his Maker and gain that reward for which
he sought and labored all these years."
Henry grew up on the family farm near Scio. On May 3, 1838, in Harrison County, Henry married his first wife, Catherine Bowers (1819-1881). The ceremony was performed by justice of the peace David Bowers, apparently one of Catherine's relatives. The Minerds had one child, Mary Ann Von Stronder, in addition to a foster daughter, Isabella 'Bell' (Edwards) Kever, "who was received into his home as his own child."
The same year
he was married, Henry purchased a town
lot in Franklin, Harrison County, for the whopping sum of $55. Around that time,
he must have gotten the itch to move west to wilderness areas of western Ohio
being sold for development purposes by the federal government. Thus the year
after purchasing the lot in Franklin, he and Catherine sold it to Frances Sampson, with the deed seen here.
Henry was a farmer. The year after marriage, Henry purchased a farm near Dixon, Van Wert County, OH, on Nov. 2, 1839. He and Catherine then made preparations for travel to their new home. Assuming their trip was anything like other family members' who came later, using "a good team of horses and a substantial wagon," they traveled across the state, a "very tedious and slow" journey.
Soon after the purchase, said the Monroeville (IN) Weekly Breeze:
He came to this country in the pioneer days and carved his way through the forest and settled on a trace of land ... and which farm he retained the ownership [of] up to the time of his death and upon which he lived and toiled until age caused him to abandon farm life, thus by his effort and toil he not only witnessed his own farm, but the whole country for miles and miles around emerge from the wild Indian forest to the beautiful farms, cities and homes of civilization.
Upon
arriving in Van Wert County, Henry joined the local Evangelical Lutheran Church
on April 6, 1839. His name appears in 1840 on a list of voters in an election
poll-book of Willshire Twp., Van Wert County, as published in the 1882 book, History
of Van Wert and Mercer Counties, Ohio.
Henry's farm was in Tully Twp., Van Wert County, and within one mile of the small town of Dixon, OH. He is thought to have helped build the Lutheran Church at Flat Rock, Allen County.
Henry also purchased an 80-acre farm across the state line in nearby Monroe Twp., Allen County, IN, on Nov. 2, 1839. This tract, purchased at the US Land Office in Fort Wayne, was in the southwest corner of Section 15, Township 29, Range 15 East. It was less than a mile away from where his brother John Minerd Jr. would settle the following year. It also was next to the farm of Catherine's relatives John Bower (purchased the same day) and close to the farm of Jacob Bower (marked in the records as being of Harrison County, Ohio, with the tract purchased just a few weeks later). A map of this tract is seen here, with Henry's farm at lower left, and brother John's at upper right.
On Nov. 10, 1840, Henry received a certificate of ownership of his Monroe Twp. farm from the General Land Office, signed by President Martin Van Buren. To see a copy of his record, on the website of the US Bureau of Land Management, click here.
It's thought that Catherine's other relatives may have also settled in Tully Twp. The Bowers siblings, including Henry and Catherine, all signed a 'quit claim' relinquishing their interests in two Tully Twp. tracts in April 1849, and agreeing that Levi Bower should have full title to one of the properties, and that Sarah Ann Bower should have title to the other. Others signing the document, all of whom were in Van Wert at the time, were William and Sarah Bower, Jacob and Eleanor 'Ellen' Bower, John and Margaret Bower, Jesse and Elizabeth Foster, and Abraham and Lydia Ann Anthony.
Henry served as a focal point for other family migration. In 1840, his brother John moved to the area, purchasing a farm on the Indiana-Ohio state line just few hundred yards from Henry's farm. Another brother, Burget Miner, moved to the town of Van Wert in about 1856, where he worked as a carpenter, building houses.
When the federal census was taken in 1850, the Minerds lived next to Henry's brother, John, and also to Jonas and Margaretta Shaffer. Living in the house also were 11-year-old daughter Mary Ann and eight-year-old foster daughter Isabelle Edwards.
In 1856, when Henry’s father wrote a will, he directed that Henry receive $80 in cash payments within nine years of the father’s death. The father did not die until 1867, and it is not known if Henry or his heirs were alive to receive the inheritance.
The 1870 federal census enumeration of Indiana shows Henry, Catherine, 31-year-old daughter Mary Ann and 13-year old Henry Black residing in the household. Ten years later, the census shows Henry and Catherine and farm hand James R. Silas under their roof. Henry was marked as suffering from a "hernia."
By 1891, the nearby village of Dixon, on the state line, was called "thriving and enterprising." A boosterism publication called the General Business Review of Van Wert County, Ohio for 1891 said that "Years ago [Dixon] was surrounded by a dense growth of forest and timber land, and by the clearing out of the trees and selling the lumber many have acquired fortunes at this place. There is here found a most excellent quality of clay for the manufacture of brick and tile which is becoming known and being brought into great demand."
Over the years, Henry worked hard to develop and cultivate his farm. The Van Wert Times Democrat once called it "large and well improved..."
When the federal census of 1870 was taken, in addition to Henry and Catherine, their daughter Mary Ann and 13-year-old Henry Black were residing in their household. The identity of Mr. Black is not otherwise known.
On Sept. 11, 1881, after 44 years of marriage, Catherine passed away. The cause of death is unknown. She was buried at the Flat Rock Cemetery. The Van Wert Times reported only that "... the wife of Mr. Henry Miner died after an illness of two days; aged 62 years."
Widowed for two years, the 70-year-old Henry then married Sarah J. Robinson of Monroeville on April 3, 1884. They were together for three years, until she died in mid-1886. Her obituary in the "Dixon" section of the Van Wert newspaper was terse: "Mr. Henry Miner has buried his second wife."
Not desiring to be alone again for long, Henry then married "Mrs. Samuel Rice," (1834-1904) a widow who was some 21 years younger. The wedding took place in Decatur, IN, on Nov. 21, 1887, by the hand of Rev. Hotte. The third wife, whose first name is not known, had at least two grown children, James Rice and Mrs. Press Carrier. Henry's daughter Mary Ann apparently did not like this new wife, as will be told later in this story.
Henry's years between 1887 and his death are little known, except as brought to light in a letter by Mrs. Carrier in 1906 that was published in the Monroeville Weekly Breeze:
[Henry and his wife] lived exemplary lives, always ready to share each others
sorrows. She being the youngest of the two cared for him in his declining years
until infirmity of old age laid hands on both, that one could not wait on the
other, when they abandoned their home and went to reside with James Rice and
wife of Ft. Wayne on Dec. 7, 1904. In the same year Mrs. Miner, my mother was
stricken with paralysis which caused her death, she being 70 years old.
After mother died, Grandpa Miner, as we always called
him, he being my step-father came to the conclusion that he wanted to make his
home with us and as he was considered as one of our family as he and mother
lived very happy together for 17 years we accepted him in our home and did all
we could to make life pleasant for him for a year and a half when he suggested
that he wanted to go and spend the remainder of his days with his daughter, Mrs.
O. Van Stronder of Van Wert, thinking it would be right and let her realize that
he was a great care on account of his affections. So we insisted then on his
going and took him to his daughters home where he remained until the Good
Shepherd called him to that home where sickness, death and sorrow shall never
enter, but where all is joy and all is one.
Henry suffered from "dropsy of the abdomen" and at age 92 died from its effects on Feb. 8, 1906, at the Von Stronder home in Van Wert's First Ward. The newspaper said "He died as a christian dies, trusting in the Lord." The Weekly Breeze reported that:
The body was brought to Dixon Sunday morning at 10:30 over the interurbin line
and taken to the Flatrock Lutheran church one mile south of Dixon, where
services were conducted in the presence of the largest assembly of people that
has ever been witnessed in that section on a similar occasion indicating plainly
that the departed was held in the highest esteem by all who ever knew him.
At the close of the services the remains were interred
in the quiet city of the dead near the church, which cemetery the deceased, if
the writers memory serves us right, was one of the founders and in which the
first death in Monroe township was buried incased in a coffin hewn from a walnut
log by the hands of the subject of this sketch.
The funeral was preached by Rev. Rauch, with a reading of Henry's obituary that had been published in the Van Wert newspaper, and with music by the Dixon choir. Today, there is no grave marker for Henry at the Flat Rock Cemetery, though foster daughter Bell rests there, as do many of Henry's first set of in-laws, the Bowers family.
For
one reason or another, at the funeral, Henry's two wives were mentioned in the
obituary reading, but not the third. This incensed Henry's step-daughter, Mrs.
Press Carrier, the daughter of the third wife. She fired off a letter to the editor of the Weekly Breeze,
defending her late mother's honor:
I would like to make mention of a circumstance that occurred at the Flat Rock
Church at the funeral of Henry Miner, Sunday. As we are the most popular people
of our community, deem it a disgrace to our community that the way the Van
Stronder family wrote up the obituary which was read of the deceased. They never
made mention of my mother, Mrs. Henry Miner, his last wife... It looked as
though she wasn't worthy of being spoken of...
I can also say there is people living near Monroeville,
Grandma Bell, Mrs. Sam Isenbergers mother, an only aunt of my mothers that is
living; John Fry, John Goiley, brotherinlaws [sic] of hers and others have known
her from child-hood up and will say mother has been always considered a lady in
every respect... I consider it right and just for the living to speak for the
dead when it is necessary.
The reaction of Mrs. Von
Stronder, Henry's daughter, to this allegation is unknown. Judging from a review
of the Weekly Breeze in the following weeks, she chose not to respond, at
least in print.
Henry's grave apparently is not marked today. A search of Flat Rock Cemetery in August 2002, by cousins Karen Wagonrod and Eugene Podraza (seen here), proved fruitless. However, the grave markers of Henry's Kever foster-offspring, and his Bowers in-laws, were easily found.
Copyright © 2001-2002, 2007 Mark A. Miner