USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 8
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nation, was continued in the board of management for thirteen years. In 1852, Judge Reynolds with his cousin and former business partner, Henderson Gay- lord, the Honorable George W. Woodward, William Swetland, Samuel Hoyt and others organized the Lackawanna & Bloomsburg Railroad Company, and securing a charter, in 1854 commenced the building of the railroad, first from Scranton to Rupert, and then to Northumberland, now forming a part of the extensive and important Lackawanna system, and was president of the com- pany until the completion of the road in 1860 after which he declined re-election, but continued a director of the company until 1865. He was also for many years and up to the time of his death a director of the Wyoming National Bank, of Wilkes-Barre. He was one of the original members of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society and remained a member until his death.
"Judge Reynolds was a man of correct business habits, far seeing judgment, industry and economy. His taste for literature led him to devote much of the time that could be spared from vast business cares to the best literature of his day, and his cultured mind and kindly temperament, united with a fine conversational gift, made him a most agreeable companion, and he enjoyed a wide acquaintance and friendship with cultured and eminent men of his day". His personal friend, Colonel H. B. Wright, who had knwon him intimately during nearly his whole life, wrote of him in his Historical Sketches of Plymouth, "The success of Judge Reynolds is but an illustration of what can be accomplished by a life of industry and perseverance guided by a sound mind and discerning judgment. He was the architect of his own fortune. * * * His foresight and high character of intellect led him to invest his spare funds in coal lands, and the increase of the value of those lands, (largely due, he might have added, to his efforts in and success in securing better transportation facilities) was the foundation of a large estate."
William Champion Reynolds was married, at Plymouth, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1832, by the Reverend Nicholas Murray, D. D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Wilkes-Barre, to Jane Holberton Smith, born at Plymouth, April 3, 1812, third child of John and Frances (Holberton) Smith, of Plymouth; granddaughter of Lieutenant Abraham and Sarah (French) Smith, of Derby, New Haven county, Connecticut ; great-granddaughter of Rob- ert and Judith Smith, and great-granddaughter of Ebenezer Smith of Jamaica, Long Island, who died there, October, 1717, and his wife Clemont Denton, daughter of Samuel and Mary Denton and great-granddaughter of the Rev. Richard Denton, who graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1623, and emigrated to Wethersfield, Connecticut, prior to 1640, and settled at Hempstead. Long Island, in 1646.
ROBERT SMITH, eldest son of Ebenezer and Clement (Denton) Smith, born at Jamaica, Long Island, removed to Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1723, where he was one of the prominent men of the town. He married March 11, 1724, Judith Fountain, daughter of James Fountain of Greenwich, and had eight children.
LIEUTENANT ABRAHAM SMITH, the sixth of the eight children of Robert and Judith, born at Norwalk, Connecticut, May 17, 1734, was a private in Col- onel Chauncey's Connecticut regiment, in the colonial service during the French and Indian war, and served for three months with his company in that regiment in 1755. He married, December 5, 1756, Sarah French, born at Derby, New Haven county, Connecticut, July 16, 1738, third child of Francis French Jr., and his wife Anna Bowers, of Derby. On his marriage, Abraham Smith settled with his wife at Derby. On the organization of the Committee of Safety in the autumn of 1774, he was chosen a member of the committee for Derby, and was
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also a member of the town committee, to report upon the measures to be adopted to carry into effect the resolves of the Continental Congress, held at Philadel- phia. In May, 1777, he was ensign in the Alarm List of the Second regiment, Connecticut militia ; in 1778, lieutenant of Captain Ebenezer Sumner's Company, in the regiment commanded by Colonel Thaddeus Cook; and in May, 1779, lieu- tenant of the Fourth company in the Alarm List of the Second regiment, Con- necticut militia. He died at Derby, February 13, 1796, and his wife Sarah, died there, August 13, 1805.
JOHN SMITH, the father of Jane Holberton (Smith) Reynolds, was the young- est of the nine children of Lieutenant Abraham and Sarah (French) Smith, and was born in Derby, New Haven county, Connecticut, April 22, 1781. He resided in Derby until 1807, when he removed to Plymouth, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, whither he had been preceded by his elder brother, Abijah Smitlı in 1806. John Smith purchased a large tract of land adjoining his brother on Ransom's creek, near the lower end of the present borough of Plymouth, which was entirely underlaid with veins of the purest anthracite coal, then es- teemed of little value, being only used to a limited extent in furnaces and forges using air blast. Judge Jesse Fell having in 1808, demonstrated that it could be burned in a grate in an ordinary fire place, Abijah and John Smith de- termined to ship an ark-load down the Susquehanna from the coal beds on their adjoining lands, which they accompanied, taking with them a stone mason and several iron grates, which they erected in Columbia and other towns and dem- onstrated that their coal could be used for domestic purposes. The result was that they sold their ark-load of coal and began the establishment of a trade that grew slowly but continually. Abijah and John Smith were therefore the pioneer shippers of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania. They formed a co-part- nership under the title of Abijah Smith & Company in 1808 or 1809, and en- gaged exclusively in mining and shipping coal, opening the first mine for that purpose in the Wyoming Valley. They were energetic and enterprising men and soon pushed their trade beyond the confines of Pennsylvania, shipping the first anthracite coal to New York in 1812, and by 1815 it had reached Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, and many other points. Abijah retired in 1825, and the business was continued by John Smith until 1845, when he also retired. He owned and operated a grist mill on Ransom's creek, the motive power of which he changed from water to steam in 1836, setting up the third steam engine ever operated in Luzerne county, and establishing the second steam grist mill in the valley.
John Smith married, at Stratford, Connecticut, January 5, 1806, Frances (Holberton) French, daughter of William and Eunice (Burr) Holberton, and widow of Samuel French. She was born at Bridgeport, Connecticut, January I, 1780, and married (first), April 15, 1798, Samuel French, who died at Strat- ford, in 1804. Her great grandfather Captain William Holberton, was born at Tor House, Holberton, County Devon, England. He was a mariner, owning his own ship, in which he came to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1699 or 1700, and died there September, 1716. He married at Boston, April 4, 1701, Mary Fayer- weather, born at Boston, April 23, 1677.
John Holberton, son of the above and grandfather of Mrs. John Smith, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, September 18, 1712, he married, September 13,
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1738, his cousin Mary Fayerweather, and settled in Stratford, Connecticut, where he died in 1788.
William Holberton, father of Mrs. Smith, and son of John and Mary (Fayerweather) Holberton, was born at Stratfield, Connecticut, August 15, 1740. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and saw considerable ser- vice. He married, in December, 1770, Eunice Burr, born in Bridgeport, Con- necticut, October 5, 1750, daughter of Captain John and Eunice (Booth) Burr, and granddaughter of Colonel John and Catharine (Wakeman) Burr. William Holberton died at Stratford, Connecticut, December 11, 1797, and his widow Eunice died there in 1838.
John Smith died at Kingston, New York, May 7, 1852, and his widow Frances (Holberton) Smith died there, February 3, 1861. They had three daughters and one son, Jane Holberton (Smith) Reynolds, the wife of William Champion Reynolds, being their third child.
Hon. William Champion and Jane Holberton (Smith) Reynolds had eight children of whom the three eldest, died in infancy. Their eldest son, George Murray Reynolds, born July 17, 1838, entered Yale College, but like his father was forced to abandon a collegiate education on account of failing health. He was throughout his life prominent in the business and municipal affairs of Wilkes-Barre, serving many years as a member and president of town council, as a director and manager of a number of the most prominent institutions of the town; was colonel of the Ninth regiment, National Guard of Pennsylvania, etc. He died in 1904. The second son, Charles Demson Reynolds, born April 17, 1840, died April 20, 1869. His widow, née Mary W. Burtis, married (second) the Rev. Samuel A. Mutchler of Philadelphia.
Sheldon Reynolds, third son of the Hon. William Champion and Jane Holber- ton (Smith) Reynolds, born February 22, 1844, received his preliminary edu- cation at Wyoming Seminary, and Luzerne Presbyterian Institute, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven, Connecticut, and entered Yale College in 1863, graduating with the degree of A. B. in 1867, and received the degree of A. M. from the same institution in 1872. Choosing the legal profession he took a course in the Columbia Law School, New York, and studied law in the office of Andrew T. McClintock, Esq., at Wilkes-Barre, and was admitted to the bar in 1871. Although Mr. Reynolds had an admirable equipment for success in his profession, he preferred to devote his time to gen- eral business and to literary and archaeological pursuits. He was a life long member and officer of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society; and was also a life member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia; a member of the Association for the Advancement of Science and the Historical Society of Virginia; and a corresponding member of the Historical Society of Bangor, Maine, and of the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C. In addition to these memberships, he served as trustee or director of various important institutions of Wilkes-Barre, thus throughout his life taking a prominent part in the affairs of the community in which he lived. He is also the author of various important essays and monographs. He died February 8, 1895.
Benjamin Reynolds, youngest child of the Hon. William Champion and Jane Holberton (Smith) Reynolds, born in Kingston, December 25, 1849, removed
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with his parents, at an early age, to Wilkes-Barre, where he has since continued to reside. He received his preliminary education in private schools at Wilkes- Barre, and then entered Princeton College from which he was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1872. In 1881, after having held a clerical position in the People's Bank of Wilkes-Barre, he became cashier of the Anthracite Savings Bank of the same city, and in 1890 was elected president of the latter, which office he still holds. He is also a director of various important corporations of Wilkes-Barre, and a member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, and of the Westmoreland Club of Wilkes-Barre.
ELIZABETH REYNOLDS, sixth child of Hon. William Champion and Jane Hol- berton (Smith) Reynolds, and only daughter who survived infancy, was born at Kingston, April 13, 1842, and twenty years later removed with her parents to Wilkes-Barre, where, October 1, 1868, she married Colonel Robert Bruce Ricketts.
COL. ROBERT BRUCE RICKETTS, who is of Scottish and English descent, was born at Orangeville, Columbia county, Pennsylvania, April 29, 1839. He is the fifth son of Elijah Green and Margaret (Lockhart) Ricketts, and grandson of Lieutenant Edward Ricketts who was born in 1759 and who was in 1781, an of- ficer in the battalion of Pennsylvania militia commanded by Colonel Hugh Dav- idson, of Bedford county.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert Bruce Ricketts, was pursuing the re- quired studies for admission to the bar. In the spring of 1861, he enlisted for three years in Battery F, Captain Ezra W. Matthews, First Light Artillery, Forty-third Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers and on July 8, 1861, was mus- tered into service. On August 5, 1861, he was promoted first lieutenant of the battery. The First Light Artillery was organized at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, under Colonel Charles T. Campbell, and early in August, 1861, the regiment was ordered to Washington, where it encamped near the arsenal. There it was more completely armed and equipped, and the same month the several batteries were separated and assigned to different divisions and corps of the army, and were never again united as a regiment. September 12, 1861, Battery F joined Major-General N. P. Bank's command, Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, at Darnestown, Maryland. Lieutenant Ricketts, in command of his section of Bat- tery F, was under fire for the first time, December 20, 1861, in an engagement with a body of the enemy on the upper Potomac. Early in January, 1863, Bat- tery F, having been previously assigned to the Second Division, First Army Corps, was now transferred to the Third Division of that corps, at which time Lientenant Ricketts was in actual command of the battery, which had come to be known as "Ricketts' Battery." February 23, 1863, Brigadier-general H. J. Hunt communicated to the commander of the artillery of the First Corps, the following: "None of your batteries are in bad order-the only corps so reported. The batteries in the best order are Reynolds' 'L', First New York; Ricketts' 'F', First Pennsylvania, and Lepperne's Fifth Maine."
March 14, 1863, Captain Matthews was promoted major, and May 8, 1863, Lieutenant Ricketts was promoted captain of Battery F. A few weeks later the division to which the battery was attached marched into Pennsylvania. On June 1, 1863, Battery G of the First Artillery was attached to Battery F, Cap- tain Ricketts assuming command of the consolidated batteries, comprising three
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officers and 141 men, and denominated "Ricketts' Battery". In the battle of Gettysburg, this battery performed noteworthy services. On July 2, it occupied an exposed position on Cemetery Hill, which Captain Ricketts was ordered to hold to the last extremity, and in the midst of the general action the famous "Louisiana Tigers", 1700 strong, suddenly and unexpectedly charged with fiendish yells upon Ricketts' Battery and its infantry supports. "As soon as Captain Ricketts discovered that this compact and desperate rebel column was moving on his position, he charged his pieces with canister, and poured in deadly volleys", states Bates, in his "History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers". "The infantry supports lying behind the stone wall in front fled in despair. The brunt of the attack fell upon Ricketts; but he knew well that the heart of the whole army was throbbing for him in that desperate hour, and how much the enemy coveted the prize for which he was making so desperate a throw. With an iron hand Ricketts kept every man to his post, and every gun in full play," and the terrible "Tigers" were beaten back, and, numbering barely 600, retired discomfited and disrupted. It would be interesting to follow Captain Ricketts and his battery into subsequent important and bloody battles and through other sucessful campaigns to the dawn of peace, but the limits of this sketch will not permit any further references to Captain Ricketts' military life other than the statement that, December 1, 1864, he was promoted major and March 15, 1865, he was commissioned colonel of the First Pennsylvania Light Artillery, June 3, 1865, he was honorably discharged from the military service of the United States, and shortly thereafter he located in Wilkes-Barre, where he has since continued to reside.
Colonel Ricketts is the owner of vast tracts of woodland on the North moun- tain, in the counties of Luzerne, Sullivan and Wyoming, Pennsylvania, where he carries on an extensive business in the manufacture of lumber. He is also engaged in other important industries. A companion of the first class of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; a member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society and of the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monument Commission; and was a member of the World's Columbian Fair Commission. He is a member of the Westmoreland Club, Wilkes-Barre, and vice-president in 1889 of its original board of directors. In 1886, Colonel Ricketts was nomi- nated for the office of lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania, by the Democratic party of the state-the Hon. Chauncey F. Black being its nominee for gover- nor,-but at the election in November, the Republican party was triumphant, electing General James A. Beaver governor and the Hon. William T. Davies, lieutenant-governor. Two years later the Democratic state convention would have given Colonel Ricketts the gubernatorial nomination had he not refused to allow his name to be brought before the convention.
Mrs. Elizabeth (Reynolds) Ricketts is an active member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Wyoming Valley Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Society of Colonial Governors. She has been for many years a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Wilkes-Barre.
Colonel Robert Bruce and Elizabeth (Reynolds) Ricketts had three children, all of whom were born in Wilkes-Barre. Their only son, William Reynolds,
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born July 29, 1869, graduated at Yale University in 1892, with the degree Ph.B., and is now engaged in business with his father. He is a member of the West- moreland Club; a companion of the second class of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; and a life member, and since 1898, curator of mineralogy, of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society. The other children of Colonel Robert Bruce and Elizabeth (Reynolds) Ricketts are: Jean Holberton Ricketts, born May 25, 1873, and Frances Leigh Ricketts, born De- cember 2, 1881.
SIDNEY ROBY MINER
The Miner family, founded in America by Thomas Miner, who came from County Gloucester, England to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1630, and in Pennsyl- vania by Charles and Asher Miner, who came to the Wyoming Valley shortly before the close of the eighteenth century, is traced through nine generations back of Thomas Miner, the Massachusetts immigrant, to-
HENRY MINER, who died in the year 1359, leaving several sons, of whom the eldest-
HENRY MINER, married Henrietta, daughter of Edward Hicks, of Gloucester, whose armorial bearings were later borne by the Hicks family of Beverston Castle in Gloucestershire. They had sons, William and Henry. The line of descent of the New England emigrant continues through seven more generations of the elder male line; the name being varied in spelling at different periods, appear- ing at times as Myner, Mynor and Minor. The line from William above men- tioned through his son Thomas and grandson Lodovick, to another Thomas Mynor, his son William Myner, and grandson William Minor, to Clement Minor, the father of Thomas, the New England immigrant, who was born in Gloucester- shire in 1546, and died there on March 31, 1640, leaving four children-Clement, Thomas, Elizabeth and Mary.
THOMAS MINOR, second son of Clement, born in England, in the year 1607, sailed from England in the ship "Arabella," and landed at Salem, Massachusetts, June 14, 1630. He became a planter at Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he subscribed to the covenant and became a member of the established church. He married there, April 20, 1633, Grace Palmer, who had come from England to Charlestown, with her father Walter Palmer in 1629, her mother having died in England a year before their emigration. In the year succeeding his marriage, Thomas Minor and Grace, his wife, joined the Connecticut colony projected by John Winthrop, the younger, and removed to Saybrook, Connecticut, and accom- panied Winthrop to New London in 1643, where he was made a freeman in 1646, and one of the five first selectmen of the town of Pequot, as New London was first known. In 1647, he was appointed by the General Court of the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony, as the legislative body of New England was called, an assistant, or justice of the county court, and was also appointed sergeant of the Pequot Squadron, or Train Band, with authority to call out and train soldiers for the defense of the settlement. He represented New London in the General Court in 1650 and 1651. January 8, 1651-2, he was appointed with Hugh Cal- kin to lay out 300 acres of land for William Cheesebrough, at Pawkatuck, on the site of the present Stonington borough, where Cheesebrough was the first settler, but was followed a few months later by Walter Palmer, the father of Thomas Minor's wife. Mr. Palmer, as before stated, had located in Charlestown, Massa- chusetts, in 1629, where he was made a freeman in 1631. The following year (1632) he married, as his second wife, Rebecca Short, and in 1642, removed to Rehoboth, Bristol county, Massachusetts, which he later represented in the
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General Court. April 5, 1652, Walter Palmer contracted with Governor John Haynes, for 300 acres, east of the Mystic River, in what is now Stonington, then known as Pawkatuck, and took possession, July 15, 1653. The contract of sale was witnessed by Thomas Minor and his son John. Palmer purchased an addi- tional 100 acres of the town of New London in February, 1653-4, and 500 acres the following year, and by May, 1655, had 1,190 acres and 55 acres of meadow there. He died in Stonington in 1662, and lies buried in the old burying ground on the banks of Wiquetequoc creek. Thomas Minor purchased a tract of land at Pawkatuck adjoining his father-in-law, and removed thereon in the spring of 1653, he and his son Clement purchasing additional tracts there in 1657, though Clement remained in the bounds of New London. Thomas Minor was one of the first selectmen of the new town, first under the jurisdiction of New Lon- don, but in 1658 the General Court decided that the territory east of the Mystic belonged to Massachusetts, and it was erected into a separate town under the name of Southerton, and included in Suffolk county. Walter Palmer was the first constable and Thomas Minor was one of four men to whom was intrusted the government of the town until officers were elected. On an appeal to the next General Court, the jurisdiction was again awarded to Connecticut, and in 1665, the name was changed from Southerton to Mystic and in 1666, to Stonington. Thomas Minor, became an assistant, or justice of Stonington, and filled succes- sively all the important official positions in the town, including that of chief mili- tary officer of the town with the rank of captain, and as such directed the for- mation of the various military companies for service in King Philip's War. He died October 3, 1690, aged eighty-three years, and his wife died in the same year. Both were buried in the ancient grave-yard on the banks of the Wique- tequoc creek, near their residence, where a tombstone records the age of Thomas Minor as given above:
"Here lyes the body of Litenant Thomas Minor, aged 83 years. Departed 1690."
The five eldest sons of Thomas and Grace (Palmer) Minor, were born at Saybrook, Middlesex county, Connecticut, viz: John, Thomas, Joseph, Clement and Ephraim. His next child Manasseh, was the second child born in the new settlement of Pequot, now New London, April 28, 1647, and he was first native of the town to be officially admitted as an inhabitant, February 28, 1669. Two daughters born at Pequot died in infancy, and another son Samuel and a daugh- ter, were born there in 1652 and 1655 respectively. By reason of the father's several commissions to treat with and military expeditions against the Indians, he, and his elder sons, became proficient in the language of the aborigines, and were frequently called upon to act as interpreters. The eldest son, John Miner, was selected by the General Court in 1654, to be instructed as a teacher and missionary among the Indians, as was John Stanton, by reason of their profi- ciency in the Indian language ; though neither fully followed out the plan of their patrons, both became useful men, filling positions as recorders, clerks, etc. John Miner removed to Stratford about 1658, and later to Woodbury.
CLEMENT MINER, the only son of Thomas and Grace ( Palmer) Miner who set- tled permanently in New London, was born in Saybrook, Connecticut, about 1640, and removed with his parents to New London in 1646. Like his father
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