John
Henry Minerd
(1851-1935)
John Henry Minerd was born in 1851 in Farmington, Fayette County, PA, the son of Samuel and Rebecca (Smalley) Minerd. He was a pioneer settler of Kansas.
When his father operated the famed Fayette Springs resort in the early 1870s near Chalk Hill, Fayette County, John co-signed an IOU note to W.A. Mouck in the amount of $119. The funds were used the finance the business. County court records show that the Minerds were only able to pay back just $86 of the debt. When the business failed soon after, it is not clear whether Mouck received the balance.
In 1875, John bought a five-acre tract that sat along the "South West Pennsylvania Rail Road" in East Huntingdon Twp., in nearby Westmoreland County. Later that year, he sold the tract and at the time was residing near Everson, Fayette County.
When the federal census was taken in 1880, John made his home with his parents in West Newton, Westmoreland County, PA. He and his brothers Springer and Melvin were identified as coal miners, while their unmarried sisters Emma and Margaret (Hester) labored in a local paper mill.
In 1886,
John and his parents
and siblings made a fateful decision to leave their longtime home area. They ventured westward,
becoming pioneer
settlers of Pittsburg, Crawford County, KS.
Trained in the rugged coal mines of Western Pennsylvania, John and his brothers are said to have "removed the first coal by using a slope mine, in what is now Lincoln Park in Pittsburg..." Seen here is a colorful old postcard of Lincoln Park as it appeared in the early 1900s, following its use as a resource for coal.
A family memoir states that John:
...worked in the mines, and in construction work, [and] was severely injured in a fall from a chat wagon, in the lead and zink mines, in the Asbury, MO area. He was never able to work from that time, and till the time of his death. A very hard drinker, and the family believed he drank, due to the pain he had.
Seen
here is a rare old photographic image of zinc smelters operating in and
around Pittsburg at the turn of the 20th century, typical of the dirty,
backbreaking environment in which John would have worked.
He and/or his brother Walker are said to have once loaned a Pittsburg merchant named Dillon some venture capital to start a meat plant. The venture was successful, took on a partner named Hull, and grew to fame under the name "Hull and Dillon Packing Co." It was in business for half a century; had the Minerds kept their investment in the company, they would have become very rich.
By 1930, when he was age 79, John made his home with his widowed sister Margaret "Hester" Jackson in Pittsburg on North Fairview.
He died in 1935 and is thought to be buried at the Mt. Olive Cemetery in Pittsburg.
Copyright © 2000, 2003, 2007 Mark A. Miner