Samuel
Minerd
(1820-1900)
Samuel
Minerd was born in 1820 in Fayette County, PA, one of 15 children of
Henry and
Hester (Sisler) Minerd. He was a well-known hotel proprietor near
Farmington, PA, and later was a pioneer settler of Kansas.
In about 1845, Samuel married Rebecca Smalley (1823-1908), the daughter of Jonathan and Margaret (Shaffer) Smalley. (His brother Jesse married Rebecca's sister Sarah.) They lived next to his brothers Isaac and Jesse in Wharton Twp.
Samuel and Rebecca were the parents of Jonathan Smalley Minerd, Laveria Georgia, John Henry Minerd, Levi "Springer" Minerd, Azaniah "Melvin" Minerd, William "Gaddis" Minerd, Emma Jane Treseder, Robert "Walker" Minerd and Margaret "Hester" Jackson. Jonathan and Gaddis died young, and were buried at Farmington.
Prior to the Civil War, Samuel worked as a laborer and
wagon team driver, likely
hauling heavy iron ingots that had been smelt at the Wharton Iron Furnace near Chalk Hill, PA.
He and his teams of horses would have transported their load along the National
Highway (US Route 40) from Chalk Hill down the long, steep road into
Uniontown, and thence westward to Brownsville, where the iron would have been
unloaded for shipment to Pittsburgh.
Several of his brothers and nephews also are thought to have labored at the furnace. The facility was in operation off and on over the years, sitting idle from 1856-1858, from the early 1860s to 1870, and then for good in 1873, forcing the Minerds to find other employment. Preserved ruins of the furnace are seen here circa 2002.
With the Civil War raging, and manpower in short supply, Samuel was one of 42 Wharton Twp. men to be drafted in September 1864. He appealed on grounds of disability, because according to the Fayette County Military Registration for 1865, on Feb. 1, 1865, he was "exempted from duty, not liable," due to some unnamed affliction. By 1870, he was working as a farmer, and his older sons were common laborers.
In
1871, Samuel received a hotel license to operate the famed Fayette
Springs resort, a short distance over the hill from the National Turnpike (today
US Route
40). The resort was nestled alongside a country road about a quarter mile south of
Chalk Hill, Fayette County, and was famed for providing guests with natural mineral
waters to cure their ills. A year later, a competitor facility opened, the Fayette Springs
Hotel (seen here), which "became a fashionable resort" and
today is a restaurant known as the Stone House.
On June 15, 1871, Samuel placed an advertisement in the Genius. It announced that "This well known, delightful and favorite summer resort will be open for the reception of visitors on the FIRST OF JULY." The ad also said he would be:
...fully prepared for the season with everything required to accommodate boarders, families or transient visitors. The house is large and commodious, pleasantly and conveniently situated near to the celebrated ... mineral springs. The table shall receive special attention and be supplied with an abundance of the very best the season and country will afford.... Persons visiting old 'Fayette Springs' this season, cannot fail to be well satisfied.
Samuel's ad in the Genius of Liberty
At
right: the site of Fayette Springs today.
In a separate story, the Genius said that Samuel "has no equal in the country as a caterer in the art of generous living, and facilities are ample and means abundant to enable him to keep first-class accommodations. He ... has also made arrangements for Rutter's Brass Band to be present at a grand entertainment to be given on the ever-memorable Fourth [of July]." The next month, the Genius said that "The 'Fayette Springs' kept by Mr. Sam'l Minerd is a pleasant quiet mountain resort. If you don't want to roll ten pins, you can pitch horse shoes."
The venture failed. In 1873, Samuel filed for bankruptcy, and sold all their household items to pay his debts. The family moved for a time to Moyer, near Connellsville, PA, where they likely mined coal.
When the federal census was taken in 1880, the Minerds made their home in West Newton, Westmoreland County, PA. Samuel, at age 59, was marked as a "Retired Dealer." Sons John, Springer and Melvin also were identified as coal miners, while daughters Emma and Margaret labored in a local paper mill. Emma was listed as having a "finger cut off," apparently related to her work in the mill.
In 1886, the Minerds decided to make a major move away from their longtime Western Pennsylvania home. They migrated to Kansas, and settled in Pittsburg, Crawford County. The 1965 manuscript, Family of Samuel and Rebecca Minerd by the late Donald Ethan Minerd, said that:
The Trip [to Kansas] was made by boat and covered wagon, and they came, not with the desire of many that made the move west (not to break the sod of the prairies) but to tear from the very bowels of the earth, leaving great piles of useless rock and dirt, as they toiled and sweat, to remove the black precious substance, COAL. The sons of Samuel and Rebecca, engaged in the mining of coal, in drift, slope, strip, and deep shaft mining. The better known of the deep mines being camp 17, and camp 10. For a time part of the family lived in Minden Mines, Mo. but later returned to Pittsburg, and the Minerd Boys, Springer, John, Melvin, and Walker, removed the first coal by using a slope mine, in what is now Lincoln Park, in Pittsburg, Kansas.
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Smoky coal mine operations in Pittsburg in the early 1900s |
A
rare old postcard view of a coal stripping pit in Pittsburg is seen here.
Note the men posed against the dark seam of coal, holding their shovels.
Kansas coal mining in that era was a deadly occupation. In 1888, just two years after the Minerds settled in Pittsburg, an explosion ripped through the nearby Cherokee & Pittsburg mine at Frontenac, claiming 80-plus lives. News articles carried nationwide told of how ignited gas "shot a stream of flame into the air, igniting the gas and fine particles of the coal-dust... and in an instant a vast, terrific explosion took place which knocked all of the miners on their faces, hurled masses of coal upon them and shook every part of the mine." While none of the Minerds is known to have been involved, reports told of how "Most of the victims were shockingly mutilated. There was nothing left of the first man brought up from the dreadful hole but a bleeding, pulpy trunk. The head and arms and legs had been blown off. [The accident] proved to be the most appalling that has ever occurred in this country...."
Samuel died at age 80 just before Christmas 1900. In a Christmas Eve edition, the Pittsburg Daily Headlight simply reported, "The funeral of Samuel Minard, which occurred this afternoon, was largely attended."
Rebecca outlived
her husband by
eight years. At the age of 85, she passed away on Nov. 4, 1908 at her home on North Olive Street in Pittsburg. The
local newspaper in Pittsburg ran a short obituary, while her old hometown
newspaper, the Connellsville (PA) Daily Courier, ran a longer one. The Courier
said:
She was born at Chalk Hill and spent much of her life in Fayette county. She left for Pittsburg, Kansas, about 20 years ago. She was a member of one of the oldest and most widely known families of Fayette county. She is survived by four sons and three daughters, all of whom reside in Kansas. She is also survived by many relatives in Fayette county.
Samuel and Rebecca rest for eternity together at Mt. Olive Cemetery in Pittsburg.
For more information, contact great-great granddaughter Melinda Brooksher.
Copyright © 2000, 2002, 2007 Mark A. Miner