USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 10
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Charles Abbott Miner was known throughout the community in which his life was spent as a benevolent, patriotic, public spirited man, deeply interested in all that pertained to the welfare of his city and people, above all selfish and sordid interests, concerned for humanity in general, and his memory is cherished in grateful remembrance. He died July 25, 1903, and an obituary article in the Wilkes-Barre Leader, of July 27, truthfully reflects the esteem in which he was held by his friends and neighbors. It is in part as follows :-
"All that was mortal of the Hon. Charles A. Miner, was this afternoon consigned to its last resting place. In the death of Mr. Miner, Wilkes-Barre has indeed sustained a severe loss. A public-spirited, philanthropic citizen, he was ever ready to help in advancing the welfare of his city and its inhabitants. His personal side was particularly lovable to all who knew him, and his business integrity was a strong example to many of the younger business men of the community. The deeds of Mr. Miner will live in this city for many a long day. After all, they are the most lasting tribute to a citizen's memory. But it would not be amiss to erect in the public square or on the river common, or some such appropriate spot-the property of the people-a monument to Mr. Miner's memory, something for the boys and girls of coming generations to look up to, to inspire in them the same noble traits and characteristics which made Charles A. Miner one of the best citizens Wilkes-Barre ever had."
Resolutions were adopted by the vestry of St. Stephen's Church of which he had been a member, by the board of directors of Wyoming National Bank, the directors of the Wilkes-Barre City Hospital, Conyngham Post No. 97, G. A. R., and the Pennsylvania Millers' Association, and hundreds of letters were received by the family from friends and business and political acquaintances in all parts of the country, testifying their appreciation of his worth and regret at his loss.
Charles Abbott Miner married, January 19, 1853, Eliza Ross Atherton, born in Kingston township, now Wyoming borough, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, March 10, 1831, daughter of Elisha Atherton, and his wife Caroline Ann Ross, granddaughter of James and Lydia (Washburn) Atherton, great-granddaughter of James and Elizabeth (Borden) Atherton, and the latter was a grandson of James Atherton, of an ancient and distinguished family of Lancashire, England, who with his wife Hannah, ernigrated to Dorchester, Massachusetts, and later to Lancaster, Massachusetts. Here his son James Atherton (2) lived and died, and his son James Atherton (3) sold the paternal estate there and removed to Coventry, Connecticut, and from thence in 1862, came to the Wyoming Valley with his son of the same name.
JAMES ATHERTON (4), born in New England, probably in Lancaster, Massa- chusetts in 1716, settled at Kingston, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, in 1769, when that section was part of the Connecticut county of Westmoreland, and lived there through the Revolutionary war. He died in 1798, and lies buried in Forty-Fort. He married Elizabeth Borden, born September, 1718, died March 25, 1802, and they had two children.
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JAMES ATHERTON (5), born in Connecticut, September 19, 1751, accompanied his parents to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania in 1762. He was a private in Captain John Franklin's Independent Company of militia, organized at Wyom- ing by the Connecticut settlers there for service in the Revolution, and accredited as a part of the Connecticut state militia, though serving in Pennsylvania. On the roll of this company as stationed at the "Post of Wyoming", from April 2, 1780, to May 4, 1780, appears the names of James Atherton, John Fuller, Jon- athan Washburn, Stephen Gardner, Joseph and Jonah Rogers, Peleg Comstock, Andrew, Thomas and Ishmael Bennett, Noah Pettebone, with a score of other familiar Wyoming-Connecticut names, including the Hurlbuts, Frisbes, Hides, Brockways, Haines and others. James Atherton (5) died at Galena, Ohio, May 5, 1828. He married, May 3, 1774, Lydia Washburn, who was born in Connec- ticut, May 16, 1757, and died at Galena, Ohio, June 20, 1847. Tradition relates that James Atherton (4), 1716-1798, was also a soldier in the Revolution, and there is hardly room for doubt that he rendered such service, as no able-bodied man, who remained in the Valley could possibly escape such service, if only in defense of himself, his family, and possessions against the savage hordes of Indians urged on or led by their hardly less savage allies and abettors the Tory partisans of the English Crown, and British officers. It is probable, however, that James Atherton was associated with the earlier organizations of Connecticut soldiers from Wyoming, which were incorporated into the Connecticut line and militia organization.
James Atherton (5) and his wife Lydia Washburn, had thirteen children, of whom Elisha Atherton, the father of Eliza Ross ( Atherton) Miner, was the sixth. He was born at Kingston, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, May 7, 1786, and died there April 2, 1853. He married, February 3, 1828, Caroline Ann Ross, daughter of General William Ross of the Luzerne County Militia, and a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and his wife Elizabeth Sterling.
JOSEPH Ross, the pioneer ancestor of the Ross family of Wyoming, lived in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and was probably a son of either John or Thomas Ross, brothers, who were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640. His wife Mary, born in the year 1646, died in Windham, Connecticut, November 5, 1725, and they had three children: Jonathan, Joseph and Daniel.
JOSEPH Ross, second son of Joseph and Mary Ross, was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1683, and was one of the proprietors of Ashford, Connecti- cut, in 1716, a land surveyor and owner of a number of town lots. He mar- ried, September 15, 1716, Sarah Utley, born September 15, 1697, daughter of Samuel Utley, of Scituate, Massachusetts, and they had ten children.
JEREMIAH Ross, third child of Joseph and Sarah (Utley) Ross, born July 26, 1721, was one of the early New England settlers in the Wyoming Valley, and died there, in Wilkes-Barre, February 8, 1777. He married, October 31, 1744, Ann Paine, born in Woodstock, Connecticut, February 11, 1720, died at Wilkes- Barre, Pennsylvania, March 22, 1813, daughter of Samuel Paine, who owned the finest house in Woodstock, Connecticut, and his wife Ruth Perrin, grand- daughter of Samuel and Anna (Peck) Paine of the same place; great-grand- daughter of Stephen and Anne (Chickering) Paine, and great-great-granddaugh- ter of Stephen Paine, who emigrated from Great Ellingham, parish of Shrop- ham, near Hingham, County Norfolk, England, in 1638, coming to New Eng-
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land with a large party of immigrants in the ship "Diligent" in 1638, and settling first at Hingham, and afterwards at Rehoboth. Jeremiah Ross and his wife Ann Paine, resided during the early part of their married life, in Scotland parish, Windham county, Connecticut, removing later to Montville, New London county, from whence in the early part of 1774, they removed to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. They had ten children, all the sons, Perrin, Jeremiah and William, participated in the terrible battle of Wyoming, and Perrin and Jeremiah lost their lives in the terrible massacre that followed. Perrin Ross was a lieu- tenant in the Twenty-fourth Connecticut Infantry, generally known as the "West- moreland Regiment".
WILLIAM Ross, the maternal grandfather of Eliza Ross (Atherton) Miner, was the ninth child of Jeremiah and Ann (Paine) Ross and was born in Scotland parish, Windham county, Connecticut, March 29, 1761. He was therefore but thirteen years of age when he accompanied his parents to the Wyoming Valley in 1774. He was a private in the Twenty-fourth Regiment, and on July 1, 1778, marched with nearly four hundred men of that regiment under Colonel Butler from Forty-Fort to Exeter, the scene of the massacre of the Hardings on June 30, 1778, and returned later with the detachment to the fort. On July 3, hav- ing no arms, those belonging to the family being taken by his elder brothers Perrin and Jeremiah, who marched out with the soldiers in the ill-advised attack on the enemy and perished in the ambuscade and massacre which followed, Wil- liam Ross remained in Forty-Fort. On receiving word of the defeat, he took his mother and sister Sarah, wife of Giles Slocum, and fled by the Nescopeck path through Fort Allen, to Stroudsburg, where they met his six other sisters, who had gone down the river to Harris' Ferry, and thence to Stroudsburg. All the family, except his mother and Mrs. Slocum however, returned to the valley in August with Captain Spaulding. William Ross was one of the party of twenty- nine non-commissioned officers and privates, under command of a lieutenant, who on October 22, 1778, marched to Forty-Fort, as a guard to the returning set- tlers and to bury the dead. William was now the head of the family, and they settled down at Forty-Fort, sallying out armed to look after the crops and feed for the cattle when opportunity offered. The Indians made several incursions into the neighborhood, driving off cattle, burning hay and committing other dep- redations. Two hundred and fifty of them attacked the fort on March 23, 1779, but were driven back. William Ross took part in the armed conflict between the Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley, and the Pennsylvania authorities when force was resorted to, to oust the representatives of Connectcut from their lands, and in July, 1784, marched with twenty-nine picked men under Captain John Swift to meet an armed force of Pennsylvanians under Major Moore, who were reported to be at Larner's on their way to attack the Yankee settlers. The two parties met at Locust Hill, in Northampton county, and a battle ensued in which one Pennsylvanian was killed and several were wounded on both sides. August 1, Secretary John Armstrong, and Honorable John Boyd, of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, came to Wyoming with an armed force and arrested Mr. Ross and others who were with him at Locust Hill on the charge of murder. They were bound with cords and thrust into the guard house and later handcuffed in pairs, each pair being tied to two soldiers with ropes, and started on the march for Easton under a strong guard, Colonel Armstrong giv-
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ing orders that any who attempted to escape should be put to death immediately ; several, including Mr. Ross, escaped, and the rest reached Easton and were lodged in jail. After the settlement of the difficulty, between the states by which the Yankees submitted to the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania and retained their lands, William Ross joined the Pennsylvania militia, and in July, 1788, was captain of a company located at Wilkes-Barre, which with three other companies was included in a troop of cavalry under Captain Paul Schott, which was ordered out July 27, 1788, to rescue Colonel Pickering, who had been abducted. In ascending the east bank of the Susquehanna near Meshoppen, Captain Ross with fifteen men encountered a party of Yankees under the lead of Gideon Dudley, and in the action which ensued, Captain Ross was shot through the body. He was removed to Wilkes-Barre and slowly recovered. In recognition of his ser- vices he was presented by the Supreme Executive Council with a handsome sword, with an inscription commemorative of the event. In 1789-1790, he was captain of the Third company of the First battalion of Luzerne county militia commanded by Lieutenant colonel Matthias Hollenback. In 1790, he was elected a justice of the peace for the second district of Luzerne county, and recommis- sioned for Wilkes-Barre alone, September I, 1791. He continued in office for twenty years or more. April 25, 1800, he was commissioned by Governor Mc- Kean, Brigade inspector of militia for the counties of Luzerne, Lycoming and Northumberland for a term of seven years, and on the same day was appointed Brigadier general of the same brigade, holding that office until 1812. In the latter year he was elected to the state senate from the district composed of Luzerne and Northumberland counties. He marched with the detachment of Luzerne county militia, part of the 35th regiment, Pennsylvania militia, in 1814, to the defense of Baltimore, but on reaching Danville, they heard of the repulse of the British and were ordered home. He was postmaster of Wilkes-Barre, 1832, to 1835. He died August 9, 1842. The court of Luzerne county adjourned on the day of his funeral and followed his remains to the grave in a body. William Ross married, October 10, 1790, Elizabeth Sterling, born at Lyme, Connecticut, November 3, 1768, daughter of Samuel Sterling, born 1732, who married, Decem- ber 2, 1756, Elizabeth Perkins, born October 14, 1737; granddaughter of Joseph Sterling, born 1707, and his wife Sarah Mack; great-granddaughter of David Sterling, born 1673, died 1747, and his wife Mary (Fenwick) Ely, widow of Richard Ely, of Lyme, Connecticut ; great-great-granddaughter of William Sterl- ing, the first of the family to locate in Lyme; and great-great-great-granddaugh- ter of David Sterling, who came from Hertfordshire, England, with his family, including his son William above mentioned, in 1652, and located in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Elizabeth (Sterling) Ross, died at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, May 16, 1816. She and General Ross had five children, of whom the fourth Caroline Ann Ross, born February 24, 1797, married (first), May 14, 1815, Samuel Maffet, who died August 14, 1825, and (second), February 3, 1828, Elisha Atherton before mentioned. She died August 18, 1885. By her second husband she had one daughter, Eliza Ross Atherton, who married Hon. Charles Abbott Miner.
Charles Abbott and Eliza Ross (Atherton) Miner had six children. The eldest, Elizabeth Miner, born 1853, died unmarried in 1902. Robert Miner and William Ross Miner, the second and third of the children, died young. The third son and
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fourth child, Colonel Asher Miner, of Wilkes-Barre, became associated with his father in the milling business on completing his education, and succeeded to the management of the old Miner's Mill in 1887; and in 1894 when the Minor-Hillard Milling Co. was organized he was made vice-president and general manager and on the death of his father became its president and has under his management and control five mills manufacturing cereal products. He has been for many years one of the most active officers and members of the Pennsylvania Millers' Association, of which he has now served for several years as president. He joined the National Guard of Pennsylvania as a private in 1884, and rose through the several grades to captain of Company D, Ninth Regiment, and was appointed by Governor Hastings in 1895, as a member of his staff with the rank of colonel, and served until the National Guard was enlisted for service in the Spanish American War, in 1898, when he was commissioned colonel of the newly organ- ized Seventh regiment, which was fully equipped for going to the war, but its services were not needed, and it was finally disbanded. Colonel Miner is presi- dent of the Pennsylvania Millers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company; a director of Millers National Federation, a director of Wyoming National Bank, and was for several years president of the Wilkes-Barre Board of Trade. He is a mem- ber of the Pennsylvania Society, of the Sons of the Revolution, of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, and of the Westmoreland and Wyoming Val- ley Country Clubs. He married, November 6, 1889, Hettig McNair Lonsdale, daughter of Lieutenant Henry Holloway Lonsdale, of New Orleans, and his wife Helen Lea, daughter of Honorable James Neilson Lea, Judge of the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Charles Howard Miner, the youngest son of Charles A. and Eliza R. ( Atherton) Miner, born July 5, 1868, graduated at Princeton University in 1890, and from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1893, after which he studied at Heidelberg and in Vienna, and has since practiced his profession at Wilkes-Barre. He served as assistant surgeon of the Ninth Regiment, Penn- sylvania Volunteers, during the Spanish American War, 1898; is a member of the Luzerne county, Pennsylvania state, and American Medical Associations; of the Military Order of Foreign Wars, and of the Wyoming Historical and Geo- logical Society. He married June 1, 1904, Grace Lea Shoemaker, a half sister to Mrs. Asher Miner.
SIDNEY ROBY MINER, the fourth son and fifth child of Honorable Charles Abbott and Eliza Ross (Atherton) Miner, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, July 28, 1864, graduated from Harvard University, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in 1888, studied law in the University of Pennsylvania, and was admit- ted to the Luzerne county bar in 1890, and has since practiced his profession at Wilkes-Barre. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Amer- ican Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, and of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, of which he has been recording secretary since 1894. He married, June 25, 1909, Lydia Atherton Stites, daughter of the Rev. Winfield Scott Stites and Lydia Atherton (Henry) Stites, his wife, of the borough of Wyoming.
HON. JOHN B. STEEL
The first of the progenitors of Judge Steel to settle in Pennsylvania was his great-grandfather, James Steel, from whose military service in the War for Independence he obtains his right to membership in the "Sons of the Revolu- tion." On the maternal side (Brown) he can also establish a clear title to colonial ancestry. Both the paternal and maternal lines converge in a com- mon fatherland,-the green Isle of Erin. Beyond that the Browns trace to the Covenanters of Scotland. Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, owes much to those early settlers of Scotch-Irish extraction, who laid broad and deep the foundation on which alone can be built true and permanent prosperity. Rugged in their honesty, deep and unchanging in religious conviction, untiring in their industry, unflinchingly loyal to their adopted country, they were a fitting race to brave the perils of the frontier and to lay the foundations of civil and re- ligious liberty, on which to build a State.
JAMES STEEL, the immigrant ancestor, was born at "Castle Blaney", near Carrick Macross, Ireland, about 1741. After the "Steel-Boy" insurrection (1771), on account of the unsettled and intolerable conditions in Ireland, he came to America, landing at Philadelphia, and coming as far west as that Scotch-Irish hive in Cumberland, now Franklin county, Pennsylvania, where, doubtless, he had friends who had preceded him. He did not long remain there but resumed his journey west, finally, in 1772, settling on land in Sewickley Manor, now Mount Pleasant township, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. This was just before the formation of that county. The land of which he be- came possessed was obtained by purchase from the Penns, and was of an ex- tent that was considered a very large holding for that date. It is now the heart of the Connellsville coking coal region and exceedingly valuable. Four hun- dred fifty acres of the original purchase have been handed down through suc- cessive generations and are now owned by a great-grandson, Joseph W. Steel. Here James Steel built his home and reared his family, amid the alarms of war and the dangers of a forest, filled with wild creatures and foes still more to be feared,-the Indians. Truc to the instincts of his race and urged on by personal conviction, when it became necessary to choose between loyalty to the mother or his adopted country, James Steel did not hesitate nor vascillate. He took the oath of allegiance, required of all foreign born citizens, March 28, 1778, before Hugh Martin, a justice of the county, and enlisted in the Mount Pleas- ant Associators. He served in the campaign of the Jerseys, as did his two brothers-in-law, Robert and Andrew Donaldson, both of whom were killed in battle. The entire military service of Jamies Steel covered a continuous period of three years, during which he bore with fortitude the shock of battle, the weariness of forced marches and the suffering of the poorly equipped, half-fed soldier, of that great war, which gave birth to a nation. James Steel married (first) Elizabeth McMasters, the daughter of a neighboring farmer. She bore him a son and a daughter. The son, Joseph Steel, married Barbara Blystone, of
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Mt. Pleasant township, and moved to Franklin township, and is buried at the Old Tent (United Presbyterian) graveyard. The daughter, Jane, became the wife of William Hunter, of Mount Pleasant township, and moved to Perrys- ville, Richland county, Ohio, where many of their descendants now live. Steel married (second), about the close of the Revolutionary war, Elizabeth Donald- son, of "East of the Mountains," who is said to have been his cousin, who bore him Elizabeth, James and John Steel. Elizabeth, born September 25, 1785, married Alexander Hamilton, lived at what was then called "Irishtown" on the Clay Pike, west of Ruffsdale, on the farm now partly owned by Franklin Null, and is buried in the Middle Presbyterian grave-yard in Mount Pleasant township. She left, surviving her, a large family, some of whom moved to Geneseo, Illinois, and later to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. James, born on the day of the adoption of the United States Constitution, September 17, 1787, married Martha Mccutcheon, a daughter of James and Peggy (Finney) Mccutcheon. lived in Franklin township, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, and is buried at Poke-Run Presbyterian grave-yard. John, we will mention later.
James Steel, the founder, died September 10, 1823, after a full and honorable life of eighty-two years. He is buried at the Middle Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant township, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania.
JOHN STEEL, son of James and Elizabeth (Donaldson) Steel, was born on the Mount Pleasant township homestead of the Steels, April 7, 1789. He grew up on the home farm, which later became his property, and which was his home until 1835, when he moved to the "Judge Robert Hanna Farm", in Salem and Hempfield townships, which had been purchased by him in 1826, and on which was located "Hannastown", the first county seat of Westmoreland county. John Steel became one of the foremost business men and large land owners in the county and did much for the good of the community. The "Hannastown Farm" now became the Steel's homestead, although all of John Steel's children were born on the Mount Pleasant farm. Beside being the first county seat, Hannas- town will always live in the annals of western Pennsylvania, as the first place west of the Allegheny mountains in all America, where justice was administered according to the forms and precedences of English law. It was here that the Scotch-Irish, the race that never produced a traitor to the cause of liberty, on May 16, 1775, signed and promulgated the first declaration of independence. This was but twenty-seven days after the fight at Concord and Lexington and fifteen days prior to the Mechlenburg declaration. It was here also, on July 13, 1782, that the last battle during the Revolution with the British and Indians, fighting as allies, occurred, ending in the destruction of the former county seat of, what was then, all western Pennsylvania. John Steel married (first) his cousin, Martha Walker, daughter of Andrew and Sallie (Donaldson) Walker, of, what was then, Virginia, near Steubenville, Ohio, May 6, 1813. Nine chil- dren were born of this marriage: Sarah, (Mrs. Henry Byers) Grapeville, Penn- sylvania ; Eliza, (Mrs. Andrew Machesney) Greensburg, Pennsylvania ; James, married Elizabeth Hanna, Pleasant Unity, Pennsylvania; Joseph W. married Malinda Brechbill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania; John, married Susan Geiger, Beatty, Pennsylvania; Margaret (Mrs. James M. Steel) Salem Township, West- moreland county, Pennsylvania; Mary (Mrs. Henry T. Hanna) Smithton,
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Pennsylvania; Martha (Mrs. Major David F. Mechling) Greensburg, Penn- sylvania ; William, of later mention.
John Steel married (second) August 6, 1846, Mary Byers, of which marriage there was no issue. John Steel was a member of the United Presbyterian Church of New Alexandria, Pennsylvania. He died April 22, 1860, and is buried in the Congruity Presbyterian grave-yard.
WILLIAM STEEL, youngest son and child of John and Martha (Walker ) Steel, was born on the Mount Pleasant farm, October 1, 1833. He was but two years old when the family moved to Hannastown, and here his entire life has been spent. He has added many acres, by purchase, to the original farm and acquired large holdings of valuable real estate and coal land. He was the pioneer of Westmoreland county in the introduction and breeding of short-horn cattle and importing of pure bred draft horses, having made two trips to Scotland to select and purchase Clydesdale stock. Always having been identified with the farm- ing and stock breeding interests of the county, Mr. Steel is considered an authority on such matters and, although now advanced in years ( 1909), he still retains the management of the farm, ably assisted however by his son, who is the active head. William Steel married, April 3, 1860, Sarah Jane Brown (of whose ancestors further mention will be made). After a married life of forty- six years, during which she became the mother of eleven children, all of whom, with one exception, survived her, Mrs. Steel departed this life March 25, 1906, and is buried in the cemetery at New Alexandria, Pennsylvania. She was the last surviving child of her parents, as her husband, William Steel, is the last of the children of John Steel. The children of William and Sarah J. (Brown) Steel were all born on the historic "Hannastown Farm"; nearly all of them in the handsome country residence erected in 1866-7 by their father, William Steel. They are as follows:
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