Eli Younkin
(1836-1912)
Eli Younkin
was born in 1836 near Kingwood, Somerset County, PA, the eldest son of John M. and Laura (Minerd)
Younkin.
Born and reared in Lower Turkeyfoot Twp., Somerset County, Eli married Mary Ann Rose ( ? -1865), the daughter of Silvester and Sophia (Smith) Rose. They had three daughters, Amanda Hechler, Harriet C. Romesburg and Christina Nedrow.
The Younkin-Minerd clan had a close relationship with the Roses over the years. Mary Ann's sister Matilda married Eli's cousin Henry A. Miner; Mary Ann's brother Andrew "Jackson" Rose married Eli's cousin Susanna Minerd; and Mary Ann's brother Charles married Eli's cousin Catherine Minerd.
During the Civil War the Younkins moved to Illinois, perhaps after the birth of their third daughter. They likely moved for the benefit of Mary Ann, whose health was poor. In January 1865, Mary Ann's brother Charles Rose and his family also moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois, where they resided for a few years near the Younkins in the town of Ashton, Lee County.
Sadly, Mary Ann's health did not improve, and she died sometime in 1865. Her brother Charles later wrote: "I was present and saw her die."
Mary Ann was buried at Franklin Grove, Lee County, as recorded in family notes. In 1993, volunteers at the Dixon Public Library near Franklin Grove searched newspapers, local histories and cemetery papers but found no record of her death or burial. An effort will be made to search records of Ashton.
Eli
and their daughters soon returned to Kingwood.
After about four years as a widower, on May 2, 1869, he married his second wife, Sarah Leichliter (1837-1912), the daughter of Samuel and Mary Ann (McNair)
Leichliter (or "Lichliter").
Little of their adult years is known, except that they lived in Smith Hollow south of Kingwood between Humbert Road and what is now Route 281. They are said to have lived "below Pete," who may have been Milton Bruce "Pete" Younkin of Kingwood.
They helped to raise a grandson, Beacher Younkin, the son of their daughter Amanda. In the 1900 federal census of Somerset County, the boy's surname was listed as "Engelka." The Younkins faced heartache in 1901 when son in law Benjamin Romesburg was killed when a stone hurled by an explosion crushed his skull during excavation for the Ursina Coal and Coke Company store.
In 1876, daughter Christina married John Wesley Nedrow, and in the 1880s they migrated westward, settling in Maitland, MO. It's not known if the Younkins ever saw Christina again.
Sadly, Eli and Sarah died just 10 days apart. She passed away on March 8, 1912, at the age of 75, and he died of a lung abscess on March 18, 1912, at age 76. They are buried at the Church of God Cemetery in Kingwood, and their large headstone was a destination on the Younkin Reunion tours of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Eli
and Sarah's old family Bible was passed down to their grandson Beacher, who
lived in Kingwood. In the 1930s, the National Younkin Home-Coming Reunions were held at the Kingwood I.O.O.F.
Picnic Grove, just a mile or so from where Eli and Sarah lived and where they
are buried. In about 1934, reunion president Otto Roosevelt Younkin
personally examined the Bible, and copied the family birth, marriage and death
entries by hand, seen at left. Click here to view the Bible
pages at a larger size. Beacher was included on a July 1935
list of local relatives who were sent an invitation that year by reunion
secretary Charles Arthur Younkin --
click to see Beacher's name on
the handwritten list.
The Younkins were further remembered in handwritten and typed notes prepared by Otto Younkin in the 1930s. (Click to see the first set of pages and second set of pages.) They also were mentioned in an exchange of letters in September 1936 between Otto and Edith Susan Lichliter of Salisbury, Somerset County, who was a great grand-niece of Sarah's. Click here to see the original letter.
This biography is adapted from one that originally appeared in the article, "Whispers of the Silence and the Slow Time," in the April, May, June 1996 edition of the Younkin Family News Bulletin.
Copyright © 1996, 2000, 2002, 2005-2007 Mark A. Miner