John
Minerd
(1804-1879)
John Minerd was born on Nov. 27, 1804, near Kingwood, Somerset County, PA, the eldest son of Jacob and Catherine (Younkin) Minerd Jr. As a 4th generation Pennsylvania farmer, he was fluently bilingual in German and English, and passed down the German language to his children. He also sold small tracts of his farm for use as a school and a church.
John had dark hair and blue eyes. He married neighbor girl Sarah Ansell, the daughter of Michael Ansell. (The Minerd and Ansell families were close. John's brother Jacob married Sarah's sister Rachel. Later in life, as a widower, John would marry his wife's sister Hannah.)
The
Minerds had seven children -- Henry A. Miner,
Catherine Rose, Sarah Minerd, Susanna
Rose, Martin Miner, Joanna
Enos and Hannah Murray. Sadly,
daughter Sarah, born in 1832, apparently died in childhood.
The family lived on a large section of a 500-acre farm at Hexebarger, near Kingwood, which John and his father jointly bought in 1837. Seen here, an old survey of John's 124-acre tract, found in the Somerset County Courthouse.
John appears to have been hot-tempered but also compassionate. In 1828, he was sued for slander when he refused to take back his accusation that one of his Younkin cousins had stolen a sheep. (Click here to read an account of the lawsuit.) The case shows that John spoke his angry words in German and in English, and that everyone who was nearby and heard the words fully understood their meaning.
Later, when his daughter Catherine wished to marry Charles Rose in 1846, John opposed the idea. Disregarding John's point of view, an eyewitness later wrote, they "eloped, and agreed to be man and wife. But her Father afterward forgave them, and called them home and insisted on them being legally married, which they did."
Despite the fact that John and his father purchased a farm together, they did not share common politics. Father Jacob was a Whig, a political party of the time which favored the interests and rights of property owners. John, on the other hand, named one of his newborn sons "Martin" apparently in honor of newly elected President Martin Van Buren, who was a Democratic reformer opposed to the Whigs, and who fought for policies that made more money more easily available to the common man.
Seen here today is a section of John and
Sarah's gently rolling farm, on the left of the gravel road.
In 1846, they sold a small portion of the southern edge of their farm (121 square perches) to the School Directors of Upper Turkeyfoot Township. The directors "erected a small house" on the property. However, in 1867, the trustees (Alexander Rhoads, Hiram Cramer, Noah S. Snyder, John F. Kreager and Jacob C. Younkin) sold the building and land back to the Minerds' son in law, Charles Rose. Rose then sold the parcel to Rhoads.
In 1854, John and Sarah sold another small parcel
(25/160ths of an acre) to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The
tract was near the Minerds' home, along a public road cutting through their farm on a
northwest-southeast orientation. (The "M. Church" is shown next to the
farm of "Jno. Minerd" on an 1860 township map, seen here.) The trustees were John's brother Jacob
as well as Harmon Younkin, Samuel McMillen, Jonas H. Younkin and Daniel N. Beal.
The church was named "Mt. Zion" though it's unknown whether a building
actually was constructed. Nineteen years later, in 1873, the tract was sold back
into private hands by the remaining trustees -- Harmon Younkin, William Eicher
and John Eicher. It's thought that the Mt. Zion congregation joined with a newly
formed church, the Mt. Bethel Church at nearby Paddytown.
The Civil War would have been hard on John and Sarah, from an emotional point of view as well as economic. Two of their sons, Henry and Martin, and 3 sons in law, Charles Rose, Andrew Jackson Rose and Perry Enos, served in Pennsylvania regiments during the war. (A.J. Rose unfortunately lost a forearm at the Battle of Gettysburg.) Because of the absence of able-bodied farm laborers, it would have been hard for 60-year-old John to cultivate and manage his farm alone.
In
1864, John and Sarah sold their farm to Alexander Rhoads and bought a farm near Normalville, PA.
(Rhoads owned the property until 1882, and over time purchased back the school
and church tracts to restore them to the original acreage.)
Sarah died shortly after the move to Normalville, sometime in 1865 or 1866. She is buried at the Normalville Cemetery, in the back of the old church. Her grave is not marked, but seen here is a hand-drawn map by granddaughter Agnes Miller. It shows the precise location of Sarah's otherwise lost resting place. She lies between her son in law Elijah Murray and her young granddaughter Sara E. Miner.
After a year or two as a widower, John married his wife's sister Hannah Ansell in November 1867. She had a son, Michael A. Firestone, from an earlier relationship.
John suffered from asthma, and died of its effects on Nov. 12, 1879. He is buried in an unmarked grave either at the Normalville Cemetery, or in a private plot on the farm once owned by son Martin. Among other debts, his estate paid $8.75 to great-nieces Rachel and Susan Long for labors they had performed.
On Aug. 7, 1885, widow Hannah passed away. In her will, she wrote that John's brother Jacob III owed her $40 "evidenced by the promissory note given" by him at an earlier date. If not yet paid by the time of her death, her son Michael was to have received payment of the debt. The outcome of the debt matter is unknown.
After the Civil War, when son Henry was back home from the Army, he too faced a slander lawsuit when -- in German words -- he accused a local woman of adultery. The case demonstrates that the German culture and language was so strong that it had endured for 130-plus years since the family's German immigrant, Friedrich Meinert, had come to America.
Copyright © 2000-2003 Mark A. Miner. 1860 Map of Somerset County courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives.