Jacob
Minerd Jr.
(1780-1842)
Jacob
Minerd Jr. was born in 1780, the son of pioneers Jacob and Maria (Nein)
Minerd Sr. Jacob
could not read or write, and signed his name with an "X." He was a prosperous farmer and landowner of hundreds of acres at 'Hexebarger,' a region of
Somerset County, PA, near the town of Kingwood.
Jacob's will and estate papers today are on file at the courthouse in Somerset, some of the family's oldest existing original documents. At last count, Jacob and his wife produced nine children, 63 grandchildren and at least 226 great-grandchildren, virtually all born before the year 1900.
Seen
at right: a rare sketch of Somerset, 13 miles from Jacob's farm, showing
what it would have looked like in the early 1840s.
Most likely, Jacob was born in Ruscomb Manor Twp., Berks County, PA, though as a young boy he moved to Emmitsburg, MD. At age 11, he moved again with his parents to Maple Summit, along the border of Fayette and Somerset Counties, PA. In 1800, as a 20-year-old, Jacob found a good farm in Turkeyfoot Twp., Somerset County, six miles east of his parents' farm.
In about 1803, Jacob married neighbor Catherine Younkin (1787-1847), the daughter of Johannes 'John' and Catharina Younkin. Catherine was born on Aug. 18, 1787 in Loudoun County, VA and was baptized at the New Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lovittsville, VA. (The original baptismal records are on deposit at the Lutheran Theological Seminary Library in Gettysburg, PA, with the Younkin name spelled 'Jungken' and 'Junghenn.')
The Minerd-Younkin wedding was the first in a long line of marriages between the two clans. They settled at Hexebarger near Kingwood, Somerset County. Their children were John Minerd, Burket Minerd, Henry Minerd, Laura Younkin, Jacob Minerd III, Charles Minerd, Catherine Barnhouse, Joel Minerd and Eli Minerd. Both Henry and Laura married Younkin cousins.
Jacob must have relied on his in-laws' help early in the marriage because in 1811, at the death of his wife's uncle Jacob Younkin, he owed the deceased's estate $10.91 for the "ballance of a note." Township tax records show that in 1808, Jacob was taxed for 75 acres of land, of which 25 were cleared for farming. In 1810, he was assessed for a cabin, one horse and two "horncattle." Each year, the amount of land and livestock changed. This may have been indicative of many land transactions by farmers in the early years that were not recorded. Rural record-keeping in the 1800s and early 1900s was inconsistent, inaccurate and at times non-existent. Perhaps farmers did not have the time or transportation to make the long trek to the county seat to record a deed, especially in the dead of winter.
A
1918 Somerset County Leader article, likely written by grandson Daniel
Martin Younkin, recalled that Jacob and Catherine "were early
settlers in what was known as the 'Hexabarger' community, which is a
provincialism that is still frequently applied to that locality in Upper
Turkeyfoot township.... The topography is unusually rugged and the
primitive inhabitants were themselves a rugged, sturdy people."
Tax records suggest that in 1829, Jacob and eldest son John began renting a large tract of land called "Hunting Lot" from the Ingersolls of Philadelphia, heirs of prominent Philadelphia judge Benjamin Chew (seen at right, in silhouette) and Alexander Wilcocks. In 1837, the Minerds purchased the 424 acres outright, though they later claimed and farmed an additional 64 acres adjacent to the property, and treated it as though they owned it.
During
this era of change and uncertainty in the mid 1830s, "[T]he economic
structure became increasingly speculative and unsound," Schlesinger wrote.
"Crop failures in 1835 toppled the first domino. Farmers could not pay
merchants and speculators, who in turn could not pay banks." By 1837, according to
Digby Baltzell's
book, Philadelphia Gentlemen, a financial panic ensued when
Americans embarked on "an era of 'wild cat'" spending. Probably
because one of the sellers of the Minerd farm, Charles
Jared Ingersoll (seen at left), was a prominent former US congressman and district attorney in
Philadelphia, and was running for office during an economic depression, he needed cash, and may have sold the land
to help raise badly needed funds.
How poorly educated farmers came into contact with the faraway Chew and Wilcocks heirs is unknown, though probably it was through a local land agent in Somerset, whom the Philadelphians were known to employ.
The
lands and waters surrounding the Minerd property were rich in game, fowl and
fish, providing the family with sufficient resources for food. Seen at right is
a rare old postcard of a trout-filled stream in the local region.
The purchase by father Jacob and son John must have reflected interesting values of the times. First, they were opportunists to took advantage of economic forces working in their favor to buy attractive land at affordable prices. Second, they had been successful in the past to save and afford a down payment. Third, they must have had great confidence in their abilities as farmers to generate future income to support themselves and pay off what likely was an installment plan. Fourth, as a Whig (forerunner to today's Republican political party), Jacob believed in the federal government's longstanding policy of favoring the rights of property owners. Whigs such as Jacob were strongly opposed President Andrew Jackson's sweeping reforms to separate the government from a strong central bank.
Much was changing in our land in the era in which the Minerds bought their farm. President Jackson's goal was to destroy the Bank of the United States and control the U.S. currency to make more money more easily available to the common man. In this gargantuan struggle, chronicled in Arthur M. Schlesinger's Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Age of Jackson, the economy crashed and inflation soared. Jackson prevailed, however, and his successor, President Martin Van Buren, signed legislation in 1840 finalizing the "divorce" between bank and state, sometimes called the "Second Declaration of Independence." Jacob's reaction to these is unknown.
(Son
John's politics are less clearly known, but he apparently was not a Whig. He is
known to have been a "Republican." Yet it's interesting that in 1840,
John's newborn son was named "Martin"
Miner apparently in honor of Democrat President Van Buren.)
(The map seen here shows L-shaped Hunting Lot outlined in dark blue pen, with the dotted lines depicting subdivisions, on 3 sides of the Old Bethel Church.) One of the original owners of this tract, Benjamin Chew (1722-1810) had once been Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, had admired Hunting Lot, and once wrote about its "excellent - upland meadow." (Chew's son in law, Alexander Wilcocks [1741-1801] was prominent in Philadelphia, as a lawyer, judge and recorder of deeds.)
When the Minerd farm estate was sold off in the 1850s and '60s, the extra 67 acres were sold as part of the parcel. This may have been due to poor land surveys common in that era. To measure land boundaries, surveyors carried special chains through forests and fields. Maps were drawn by hand. Officials had to make detailed calculations and compute all the angles of the property before they could arrive at an acreage figure. The primitive equipment contributed to the lack of accuracy.
The large farm played an important role in the Minerd family's growth and development. As the older sons grew into manhood, they built homes on different sections, knowing they would eventually purchase them outright. They did some creative "gerrymandering" with the subdivision boundaries so each could share a portion of the precious flat meadow. Four generations lived there between 1837 and 1867, when the last parcel was sold out of the family. In 1851, at the heyday of the family's habitation of the farm, about 35 family members lived in various dwellings within its broad boundaries. The location of the Minerds' large farm has been identified today using an analysis of old deeds and an examination of ancient maps and assessment surveys.
The upland meadow
of the old Minerd farm, lush with corn,
with
the Old Bethel Church of God at far right.
Jacob
was a farmer and
distiller. In
religion, he and Catherine were members of the Christian Church of Turkeyfoot.
The congregation also was known as the Disciples of Christ, founded in 1830 by Rev. Alexander
Campbell, seen here. (What faith the Minerds practiced before then
is unknown.) A 1916 article in the Christian Standard reports that
the pastor of their church was Herman Husband, whose wife Rachel (Younkin)
Husband was
one of Catherine's cousins. Herman "planted" the church "and
ministered to it till 1843, when he moved to Illinois.... The church he
left in Pennsylvania continued for many years, ministered to by Aaron Schrock
and others, until it was absorbed in the Centerville Church." (Note Campbell's shaven upper lip, a style worn by several of Jacob and
Catherine's adult sons.)
The Disciples had no creed but Christ, based solely on doctrines found in the New Testament. Their custom was to partake of Communion at each Sunday service, and adult baptism was by immersion. In his will, dated February 1842, Jacob wrote a few of the only known words attributed to him:
I earnestly entreat my wife's utmost care respectively in and about the morals and education of my children ... and desire that they be brought up and instructed in the doctrine and religion of the Christian Church.
Jacob designated that four of his eldest sons living nearby were to receive equally divided shares of the farm after his death -- John, Henry, Jacob and Charles. Son Burket, the second eldest, was living some distance away near Kingwood, Preston County, WV, and thus did not participate.
Tragically Jacob died on Nov. 11, 1842, after being crushed while chopping down a tree. In his will, written in February of that year, he directed that "my body be interred decently in the burying ground of the Christian Church in Turkeyfoot according to the rites and ceremonies of said Church."
In the will, Jacob named his "beloved wife" as his executor, although she declined in favor of Thomas Hanna. Jacob also stated that the executor should "proceed to get an office right for my home place, where on I now reside (the same being vacant)," perhaps to clear up any inconsistencies in the deed. He said that upon his widow's remarriage or death, the homeplace was to be taken by Charles.
Catherine
outlived him by five
years, and died in August 1847
of stomach trouble. She presumably was buried with or near her husband. Their
graves are unmarked today. Local residents report
that the old portion of the cemetery, where the Minerds rest, was leveled at one
time to provide parking for
churchgoers. The vacant grassy site is seen
here in August 1978, looking from the road back to where the few modern
gravestones stand. The Minerds are thought to be buried to the left, somewhere
along the tree line. Click to see a hand-drawn
map with more details and precise markings as well as a photograph.
The old Minerd farm remained in the ownership of their sons until about the time of the Civil War, when the last parcel was sold out of the family. A grandson, who visited the site in October 1905, later remarked that the "old ear marks of boyhood days are about all obliterated."
Jacob and Catherine's middle-aged grandchildren and grand-nephews remembered them at the First Annual Minerd Reunion at Ohiopyle, PA in August 1913. At that reunion, their grand-nephew Allen Edward Harbaugh read a history which has survived and provides a number of details in this biography. They also were named in a 1918 article in the Somerset (PA) Leader, with information likely provided by grandson Daniel Martin Younkin, in connection with that year's family reunion that he organized.
In October 1934, nearly a century after their deaths, Jacob and Catherine were named in extensive genealogy manuscript records compiled by distant cousins Otto Roosevelt Younkin and Charles Arthur Younkin. The researchers were gathering data in connection with the Younkin clan's new national home-coming reunion. During this research, Charles Younkin found their names in old genealogy records that had been prepared years earlier by their grand nephew, Allen Edward Harbaugh. In Charles' letter of Sept. 29, 1935, spelling out these new discoveries, he wrote:
Just the other day while looking [at] some old Harbaugh Records I happen to have I came across this where a Jacob Minerd, who was born in Maryland in 1780, married Catherine Younkin, who was born in Somerset Co. 1787. Well I knew that Polly Younkin was married to Henry Minerd, this Henry Minerd, who was married to Polly Younkin, was a son of the above Jacob, as I happen to have the names of the descendants of the Jacob and Catharine union, also a Lorah Miner brother of Henry above was married to a Younkin, the name I do not know at this time.
Then, in 1937, Nellie B. (Younkin) Wiley, secretary of the reunion association, went to the Somerset County courthouse and dug into numerous old Younkin estate files. Among these were the files about Catherine's father, John Younkin, who had died in 1826. Click to see the actual handwritten letter that Mrs. Wiley sent to Otto Younkin on Aug. 31, 1937, outlining her findings. (You will need Adobe Acrobat to read the files.)
During the National Minerd-Miner-Minor Reunion in 1992, attendees took a driving tour of the Kingwood area, stopped at the site of the Minerds' old homeplace in Hexiebarger, and paid their respects at the cemetery where Jacob and Catherine are buried.
Copyright
© 1988, 1991, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2005-2006 Mark A. Miner.
Parts of this article originally appeared in
the February 1988 and August 1992 editions of the Laurel Messenger newsletter and the July 1991 Younkin Family
News Bulletin. Silhouette of Benjamin Chew originally
published in Benjamin Chew: 1722-1810 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press,
1932). Portrait of Charles Jared Ingersoll originally published in The Life
of Charles Jared Ingersoll (Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1897).
Sketch of Somerset published in 1843 in Historical Collections of the State
of Pennsylvania by Sherman Day.