Jacob
Minerd
(1821-1885)
Jacob
Minerd was born in on Oct. 17, 1821 near New Rumley, Harrison County, OH,
the son of George and Susannah (Smith)
Minard. He and his family had tragic and, ultimately, self-destructive
lives.
On Dec. 9, 1847, Jacob married Mary Ann Kimmel (1828-1881), by the hand of Rev. A. Bartholomew, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Rumley. Mary Ann was the daughter of justice of the peace Frederick Kimmel.
The Minerd and Kimmel families were close. Jacob’s widowed sister-in-law Catherine [Gillespie] Catherine [Gillespie] Minard would wed Mary Ann’s brother Joseph. Click for more on the Kimmels.
The Miners had at least six children – Elizabeth A. Minerd, Martha Jane Manbeck, Henry "Franklin" Minard, Barbara "Ellen" Minerd, John W. Minard and Sarah Margaret Kyle.
Sadly, daughter Elizabeth died at age four in October 1853. She is buried near her parents at the Lutheran Church Cemetery near New Rumley.
When the federal census was taken in August 1850, the Miners lived next door to Jacob's brother John W. Minard/Miner. Both families were listed as farmers.
The census of 1860 shows the family residing near New Rumley, with Jacob working as a laborer, and Mary Ann as a house keeper.
By July 1870, when the census again was enumerated, the Miners lived near New Rumley, with the 48-year-old Jacob employed as a carpenter.
It's possible that Jacob served during the
Civil War. In 2001, a visit to his grave revealed that a metallic marker,
inscribed "Union Soldier," and a flag are mounted beside his marker, seen
here. If he indeed served, his regiment is unknown, but will be researched.
Interestingly, Jacob's grave at the Lutheran Church cemetery in New Rumley
spells the family name "MINERD."
A series of tragedies began to run in this family in 1881. That year, on April 12, wife Mary Ann passed away, at age 53, of causes unknown. She was buried at the Lutheran Cemetery near New Rumley. The spelling on the family name on her marker was "MINER."
The
following year, on Nov. 25, 1882, Jacob wed Susan Trushel, the daughter of Peter
and Fannie (Little) Trushel. It was a troubled union. After just three years of
marriage, on the day after Christmas 1885, Jacob took his own life by "cutting his throat with a razor."
He was just 55 years of age. His tired remains were laid to rest beside his first wife.
Said the Cadiz Republican, Susan then "attempted to kill herself by hanging, but did not succeed. Her friends discovered that her mind was deranged, and she was brought to Cadiz and placed in jail for safe keeping." She was declared “an insane person” by the county probate court, and was taken to an asylum in the state capitol of Columbus. Sadly, she "died at that institution within a few days after her arrival."
Susan is mentioned in Beers’ 1891 book, Commemorative Biographical Record, Harrison, Ohio.
Daughter Barbara Minerd also was institutionalized for mental illness at the Central Insane Asylum in Columbus. She took her own life in 1888 after learning of her father's death.
Grandson Charles Manbeck, a brakeman on the Pittsburgh & Fort Wayne Railroad, was killed in a railroad accident in Alliance, OH in 1905.
Copyright © 2002, 2007-2008 Mark A. Miner