USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 9
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he became prominent in public affairs, was ensign and captain successively of the military forces of New London, and a leader in all public affairs as well as a deacon of the church. He purchased a tract of land adjoining his father and grandfather at Pawkatuck in 1657, but evidently did not remove thereto, as we find his name on the public records of New London, during all the succeeding years of his active life, being usually designated as "Ensign Clement Miner", or "Deacon Clement Miner." He was the leader of the New London party, who in May, 1671, came into armed conflict with a like party from Lyme, over the respective rights of the two towns to a strip of meadow at Black Point, and was captured by the Lyme party, though immediately released. He mar- ried (first) in 1662, Frances Burcham, the widow of Isaac Willey, Jr. She died January 6, 1672-3, and he married (second) Martha Wellman, daughter of Wil- liam Wellman, formerly of New London, but then of Killingworth. She died July 8, 1681, and he married (third) Joanna, who died at about the same time as Clement in October, 1700. By his first wife, Frances Willey, he had five chil- dren : three sons, Joseph, Clement and William, and two daughters, Mary, the eldest child, who became the wife of Thomas Leach; and Ann, the youngest. By the second wife he had one daughter, Phoebe, born April 13, 1679.
CLEMENT MINER (2), son of Clement (I), and Frances, born at New London, October 6, 1668, married Martha Mould, daughter of Hugh Mould, ship build- er of New London, who came from Barnstable or Cape Cod to New London, prior to June 11, 1662, on which date he married Martha Coite, daughter of John Coite, of New London. The last vessel built by him at New London was the "Edward and Margaret," a sloop of thirty tons, built for Edward Stallion in 1681, but he remained a resident of the town until 1691, when his family left the town, and were afterwards resident at Middletown, Connecticut, though Hugh Mould is supposed to have died at New London, at about the date above mentioned.
Clement and Martha (Mould) Miner, had eleven children : among them-
HUGH MINER, the grandfather of the Wyoming Valley pioneers, Charles and Asher Miner. Hugh Miner married and had among other children-
ENSIGN SETH MINER, born in New London, Connecticut, 1742, inherited the martial spirit of his ancestors, three successive generations of whom had been leading military officers of their town and county during the Colonial period, serving in the Pequot, King Philip's and the French and Indian wars, respec- tively. It is little to be wondered at therefore that he responded to the first call for troops to battle for the independence of the colonies, and early became a commissioned officer in the patriot forces. He was commissioned an ensign in the Twentieth regiment, Connecticut militia, in June, 1776, and served through- out the Revolutionary war. He was a member of the Susquehannah Company, who purchased from the Indians and laid claim to the territory embraced in the historic Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, and was a purchaser of land there. ยท On the renewal of the struggle for supremacy in the valley after the close of the Revolutionary war, Seth Miner was one of the active protestors for the rights of the Connecticut settlers, and in 1799, deputed his son, Charles, then an apprentice printer in the office of the Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer, at New London, to go to Wyoming and take possession of his farm in Jessup township, Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania. The elder son, Asher, followed
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in 1801, and the later days of Seth Miner were spent with his sons in Penn- sylvania, and he lies buried in the Presbyterian burying ground at Doylestown, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where he died January 15, 1822.
Seth Miner married, in 1767, Anna Charlton, who was born about 1744, and died November 3, 1804. They lived for many years in Norwich, Connecticut, where their five children were born; three daughters, Elizabeth, born December 12, 1768, married a Captain Boswell; Anna, born November 20, 1770, who died unmarried, and Sarah, born August 31, 1773; and two sons, Asher, born March 3. 1778, and Charles, born February 1, 1780. The latter, who at the age of seven- teen, became a printer's apprentice at New London and two years later came to Wyoming to take charge of his father's farm in Susquehanna county, soon abandoned farming and removed to Wilkes-Barre where he joined his brother Asher in the publishing of the Luzerne County Federalist, purchasing Asher's interest in 1804, and becoming a prominent figure on political affairs ; serving in the town council; one of the original trustees and founders of Wilkes-Barre Academy; many years a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, and ex- tremely active and influential in legislation of the utmost importance to the growing state; part owner and editor of the True American, in Philadelphia, in 1816; proprietor and editor of the Village Record at West Chester, Pennsyl- vania, 1817-1832; member of Congress 1825-1828; returned to Wilkes-Barre in 1832, and followed literary pursuits; died there, October 26, 1865; author of "History of Wyoming," and a prolific writer on many subjects. He married in 1804, Letitia Wright, and had four daughters and one son; William Penn. Miner, lawyer and journalist of Wilkes-Barre, author of "History of the Coal Trade in Luzerne and Lackawanna Valleys," etc., died 1892.
ASHER MINER, fourth child and eldest son of Seth and Anna (Charlton) Miner, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, March 3, 1778. He served an ap- prenticeship in the office of the Gazette and Commercial Advertiser, at New London, Connecticut, and worked one year as a journeyman printer in New York, prior to joining his brother Charles in Wilkes-Barre in 1800. He ac- cepted a position on the Wilkes-Barre Gazette, which suspended publication in less than a year after his connection therewith, and he founded the Luzerne County Federalist, the first number of which was issued January 5, 1801. His brother Charles Miner became his partner in its proprietorship, April 1802, un- der the firm name of A. & C. Miner, which was dissolved in 1804, by the sale of the whole interest in the enterprise to Charles Miner. On the sale of the Federalist to his brother, Asher Miner removed to Doylestown, Bucks county, and established there the Pennsylvania Correspondent and Farmers' Adver- tiser, the first number of which appeared July 7, 1804. It was a paper of strong Federalist leanings, the only newspaper published in the county at that time. It later came to be known as the Bucks County Intelligencer, and is still published at the same place. Its early publication was a struggle against ad- versity, the first issue being practically given away, but eventually it found favor with the people, and proved a successful enterprise. Mr. Miner was an ambitious publisher ; as early as 1806, he announced through the columns of the Correspondent his intention of publishing a monthly magazine, but though he agitated the subject for ten years he never received sufficient encouragement to warrant the publication. In 1816, he again announced his intention to pub-
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lish a monthly journal to be known as "a monthly literary and agricultural reg- ister" under the name of The Olive Branch and received and prepared contri- butions of a fine literary character for the proposed publication, but the pro- ject progressed no farther than the setting apart a page of the Correspondent to these contributions under the name of The Olive Branch, for a considerable per- iod, the publication of a separate journal not receiving sufficient substantial en- couragement. He, however, opened a branch office at Newtown, in the same county in 1817, and on May 21, of that year issued the first number of another newspaper The Star of Freedom, established virtually to keep newspaper com- petition out of the county, and while it answered this purpose, it was not very successful as an individual enterprise, and was abandoned the following year.
Asher Miner was postmaster of Doylestown for many years, keeping the of- fice in his printing establishment, where he also kept for sale books, stationery supplies and a number of other articles of a miscellaneous character which he advertised through the columns of his paper. He was a man of learning and of marked ability in his profession, an upright Christian gentleman, a devout member of the Presbyterian Church, aiding materially in the establishment of the first Presbyterian Church in the town during the first decade of his resi- dence there, and was much admired and respected in the community. He re- linquished the postmastership in 1821, and in 1824 sold out his paper, and joined his brother in the publication of the Village Record, at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Charles Miner having been elected to congress in that year. Asher continued to publish and edit the Village Record, in part- nership with his brother until 1834, when they sold their joint interest therein and Asher followed his brother to Wilkes-Barre, where he died, March 13, 1841.
Asher Miner married, May 19, 1800, Mary Wright, daughter of Thomas Wright of Wilkes-Barre, and his wife Mary Dyer, of the well-known family of Dyer, of Dyerstown, two miles north of Doylestown, Bucks county, Pennsyl- vania, where John Dyer, established a mill in 1722, and was later prominent in public affairs as were his descendants for several generations. They were mem- bers of the Society of Friends. Mary (Wright) Miner died at West Chester in January, 1830, and Asher married (second) at Wilkes-Barre, May 13, 1835, Mrs. Thomazine (Hance) Boyer. Asher and Mary (Wright) Miner had thir- teen children but five of whom survived him, and all but two of whom died com- paratively young and unmarried. His eldest child, Anna Maria Miner, married Dr. Abraham Stout.
ROBERT MINER, second son and third child of Asher and Mary (Wright) Miner, born at Doylestown, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, August 17, 1805, took charge of his father's mill at Wrightsville, now Miner's Mills, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, and also taught school for a number of years in Plains township, that county, before arriving at his majority. On his marriage, at the age of twenty-one, in 1826, he built a house at Miner's Mills and resumed charge of the mill, which was burned down in that year, but he rebuilt it and continued to con- duct it until 1833, when he embarked in the newspaper business, purchasing, in connection with Eleazer Carey, the Wyoming Herald, a weekly newspaper, which they published until 1835, when it was merged with the Wyoming Republican, then being published in Kingston. November 1, 1836, Robert Miner became a
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clerk in the office of the Hazelton Coal Company, which had just been incorpo- rated, and began business in very modest apartments. Their office was in a lower room of an addition to the old Drumheller tavern at Hazelton, where Robert Miner, their clerk, boarded. The Company laid out some of its land in town lots and began to sell them, the first house being erected in 1837. Mr. Miner built himself a home on one of these lots in 1837, and on July 4, of that year removed his wife and son Charles A. from Plains to Hazelton. His second son John, born there in the following January was the third child born in Hazelton. Robert Miner became secretary and treasurer of the company and in 1840, formed a partnership with Ario Pardee, then superintendent of the company, and a miner by the name of Hunt, under the firm name of Pardee, Miner & Company, and they mined coal by contract and loaded it into boats at Penn Haven. Mr. Miner was forced to withdraw from the firm by reason of illness in 1841, and returned with his family to Plains township, Luzerne county. In November, 1842, he made a trip to Easton, in a carriage with his younger brother Joseph, returning on December 9, and that night was taken violently ill and died before morning, thus ending at the early age of thirty-seven years what bore promise of a bril- liant, useful and successful career. A biographer has written of him, "He has been described as of peculiar and substantial worth, at all times cheerful and happy, with power to raise these emotions in others. His life was an exempli- cation of true greatness to which many may attain through mastery over self. His piety, charity, and urbanity became a part of his existence; to do good to his fellow creatures was the pleasure of his life. He was polite without show, char- itable without ostentation, and religious without bigotry. In business he was punctual and exact, and such was the burden he took upon himself in whatever he engaged in, that those coming after him found little to do."
Robert Miner married, January 3, 1826, Eliza Abbott, born October 22, 1806, died August 18, 1846. She was a daughter of Stephen and Abigail (Searle) Abbott, of Plains, Luzerne county, granddaughter of John and Alice (Fuller) Abbott, who were among the first Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley, and a descendant of George Abbot, a pioneer settler at Andover, Massachusetts.
GEORGE ABBOT, born in Yorkshire, England, in 1615, emigrated to New Eng- land in 1637, and in 1643, became one of the original proprietors of Andover, Massachusetts, where his house was one of the fortified ones and was used for many years as a garrison for defense against hostile Indians. He married, December 12, 1646, Hannah Chandler, daughter of William and Annis Chand- ler, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, who with her parents and three other children had crossed the Atlantic in the same ship with her future husband. George and Hannah (Chandler) Abbot lived a life of trials, dangers and privations in a primitive community, which they endured with the Christian fortitude and austere piety peculiar to the early Puritan, and reared a family of thirteen children. He died December 24, 1681, and she, June 11, 1711.
WILLIAM ABBOT, son of George and Hannah (Chandler) Abbot, born in Andover, Massachusetts, November 18, 1657, spent his whole life there. He married, June 19, 1682, Elizabeth Geary, born July 10, 1661. daughter of Nathan- iel Geary, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and his wife Ann Douglass, daughter of William Douglass, and granddaughter of Robert Douglass, first of Gloucester, who was a resident of Boston in 1640; and granddaughter of Denis Geary, who
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came from London, England, in the "Abigail" in 1635, and settled in Lynn, Mas- sachusetts.
PHILIP ABBOTT, ninth of the twelve children of William and Elizabeth (Geary) Abbot, was born at Andover, Massachusetts, April 3, 1699. He married, Octo- ber 20, 1723, Abigail Bickford, and removed to Hampton, Connecticut, and later to Windham county, Connecticut, where most of his children were born, and where his estate was settled in 1749.
JOHN ABBOTT, the grandfather of Eliza (Abbott) Miner, was the youngest of the eight children of Philip and Abigail (Bickford) Abbott, and was born in Windham, Connecticut, December 27, 1741. He was one of the first of the Connecticut colony to settle in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, and built the first dwelling house on the site of the present city of Wilkes-Barre, in 1769, and as re-built by his son Stephen, it was standing as late as 1812. John Abbott joined the local military organization of the Connecticut settlers in Wyoming, ostensibly belonging to a Connecticut regiment, and took part in the terrible bat- tle of Wyoming, July 3, 1778. He escaped the massacre at the fort, but later attempting to save a portion of his harvest, with Isaac Williams, a lad of seven- teen years, was killed and scalped by the Indians. On November 30, 1895, a granite monument was erected on the spot where they met their death, bearing the following inscription :
"Near this spot John Abbott, aged 36 years, a survivor of the Battle and massacre of Wyoming, and Isaac Williams, aged 17, were killed and scalped by Indians, July, 1778"
The ground was donated by J. Robertson Williams, a descendant of the family to which Isaac Williams belonged, and the fund for building the monument was secured by Sidney Roby Miner, a lineal descendant of John Abbott. The house, barn and furniture of John Abbott were burned and his cattle lost, and his widow, in a state of utter destitution, with nine small children, the eldest nine years of age, begged her way back to relatives and friends in Connecticut.
John Abbott married in Connecticut, November 4, 1762, Alice Fuller, eldest daughter of Stephen Fuller, who with his wife and family accompanied the Abbots and others to Wyoming in 1768, and was also killed in the battle of Wyoming, July 3, 1778, being the oldest man in the battle. Mr. Fuller was born in Windham county, Connecticut, and was a son (or grandson) of Thoni- as Fuller, born April 30, 1644, and his wife, Martha Durgy, daughter of Wil- liam and Martha (Cross) Durgy; and grandson (or great-grandson) of Lieu- tenant Thomas Fuller, of Woburn, Massachusetts, who came from England, in 1638, was a sergeant of provincial forces, 1656, and lieutenant as late as 1685, married, June 13, 1643, Elizabeth Tidd, daughter of John and Mar- garet Tidd. Stephen Fuller married, June 1, 1723, Hannah Moulton, and Alice (Fuller) Abbott, was their eldest child.
STEPHEN ABBOTT, the father of Eliza (Abbott) Miner, born in the Wyoming Valley, near the site of Wilkes-Barre, April 19, 1771, was the third of the sur- viving children of John and Alice (Fuller) Abbott, and was one of the nine children with whom his widowed mother made her way back to Connecticut. after the tragic death of the father at the hands of the savages on his planta- tion on Jacob's Plains, July 18, 1778. The family remained in Connecticut un-
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til 1798, when Stephen Abbott, accompanied by his cousin Philip Abbott, and family and a number of others, returned to his father's plantation in Plains township, Luzerne county, where he resided until his death in 1853. He mar- ried, July 14, 1799, Abigail Searle, born June 25, 1779, died June 2, 1842, daughter of William and Philena (Frink) Searle, and granddaughter of Con- stant Searle and his wife Hannah Miner.
Constant Searle, born in Little Compton, Rhode Island, July 17, 1728, was a son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Kinnecut) Searle, of Little Compton ; grandson of Nathaniel Searle, and his wife Sarah Rogers, daughter of John Rogers and his wife Elizabeth Pabodie, who was a daughter of William Pabodie, and his wife, Elizabeth Alden, daughter of the historic John Alden, the scrivener, a passenger on the "Mayflower", and his wife Priscilla Mullins, who with her fath- er, William Mullins, also came on the "Mayflower". John Rogers last above men- tioned, was a son of John Rogers and his wife, Ann Churchman, daughter of Hugh Churchman, who with Thomas Rogers, the father of John, and John Pabodie, father of William, were all passengers on the historic "Mayflower."
Constant Searle married, in Stonington, Connecticut, May 16, 1751, Han- nah Miner, born December 9, 1731, daughter of Simeon Miner, and his wife Hannah Wheeler, daughter of William Wheeler of Stonington, Connecticut, and his wife Hannah Gallup, daughter of Ben Adam Gallup, and his wife, Es- ther Prentiss, and granddaughter of Captain John Gallup, of New London, Connecticut, and his wife, Hannah Lake, daughter of Mrs. Margaret Lake, the first woman to appear in New London in 1646, a member of the family of Governor John Winthrop, the first chief magistrate of Connecticut, and the founder of the New London settlement, at least a kinswoman of his and thought to have been his sister. The two John Gallups, father and son, were among the first settlers of Connecticut and both were prominent Indian fighters. Captain John Gallup, the second, was killed at the Indian fight at the Narra- gansett fort, December 19, 1675. He was a son of John and Christobel Gallup, who were among the earliest English settlers of Massachusetts. His son Ben Adam Gallup, also prominent in public affairs at New London, was born there in 1655, and his wife Esther Prentiss was born there July 20, 1660.
Simeon Miner, above mentioned was a son of Captain Ephraim Miner, a grandson of Lieutenant Ephraim Miner and great-grandson of Thomas and Grace (Palmer) Miner, from whom descend the Miner family of Wyoming. Lieutenant Ephraim Miner, a son of Lieutenant Thomas Miner, and his wife Grace Palmer, was born in Saybrook, and was brought by his parents to New London, Connecticut, when an infant, and removed with them to Pawkatuck, later Stonington, in 1653, and like his father was a prominent military officer. He married Hannah Avery, born October 12, 1644, at Gloucester, Massachu- setts, daughter of Captain James Avery, one of the first and leading spirits in the settlement of New London, deputy to the General Court, commissioner to treat with the Indians, etc., and his wife Joanna Greenslade; and granddaugh- ter of Christopher Avery, from Salisbury, England, who came from Boston to Gloucester in 1644, where he was a selectman, 1646 to 1654, and who followed his son to New London, Connecticut in 1665.
Captain Ephraim Miner, son of Lieutenant Ephraim and Hannah (Avery) Miner, married Mary Stevens, daughter of Richard and Mary (Lincoln) Stev-
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ens, and they were the parents of Hannah Miner who married Constant Searle. The earlier generations of the Searle family, like those of the Miner family, lie buried in the ancient burying ground on the banks of the Wiquetequoc creek, near Stonington. Constant and Hannah (Miner) Searle were among the first Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, and he was killed at the battle and massacre of Wyoming, at Forty-Fort, July 3, 1777. His wife and family escaped and she survived until 1813.
William Searle, son of Constant and Hannah (Miner) Searle, and father of Abigail Searle, who married Stephen Abbott, married, October 17, 1773, Philena Frink, born February 21, 1755, daughter of Andrew and Abigail (Bil- lings) Frink, grandaughter of Samuel and Margaret (Wheeler) Frink, and great-granddaughter of Samuel Frink and his wife Hannah Miner, daughter of Lieutenant Ephraim Miner, before mentioned and his wife, Hannah Avery. Thus making the subject of this sketch a descendant on three different lines from Thomas and Grace (Palmer) Miner, one of the founders of New Lon- don, Connecticut. The Frinks were likewise among the earliest settlers of New England, Samuel Frink, last above mentioned, being a son of John and Grace (Stevens) Frink, and a grandson of John Frink, a native of England. Abigail (Searle) Abbott, the wife of Stephen Abbott, and mother of Eliza Abbott, who married Robert Miner, died in Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, June 2, 1842, Her daughter Eliza (Abbott) Miner, survived her husband Robert Miner, less than four years, dying August 18, 1846, in her fortieth year. They had three children, but one of whom survived childhood.
HONORABLE CHARLES ABBOTT MINER, only surviving child of Robert and Eliza (Abbott) Miner, born in Plains township, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, August 30, 1830, was educated at Wilkes-Barre Academy, and the academy at West Chester, Pennsylvania. He inherited the flouring mill at Miner's Mills once the property of his grandfather, Asher Miner, which his father had come to Luzerne county to manage at the age of fourteen years, and his whole life was devoted to milling enterprises, which his progressive and practical industry and enterprise did much to advance. He was one of the founders and the first presi- dent of the Pennsylvania Millers' Association, and was identified with many of Wilkes-Barre's industrial, financial and educational institutions and enterprises from early manhood. He was for twenty-five years a director of Wyoming National Bank at Wilkes-Barre, and its vice-president at the time of his death, and was for fifteen years president of the Coalville Street Railway Company. He was president of the board of directors of the Wilkes-Barre City Hospital from the time of its organization ; president of the board of trustees of Wilkes- Barre Academy, and president of the Luzerne County Agricultural Society. In 1877 he became commissioner of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsyl- vania. Politically he was a Republican, and served his party with ability and energy. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1874, and served by successive re-elections, until 1881, when he was his party's candidate for the State Senate from his district, but was defeated by his Democratic opponent, Eckley B. Coxe. He was a soldier in the Civil War, having enlisted in Company K, Thirtieth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, from which he was honorably discharged, holding the rank of sergeant, July 26, 1863.
Mr. Miner was a zealous advocate of a thorough education for men and women,
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and did much to advance the standard of education in his home community. For many years he furnished what were known as the "Miner prizes" for contests in declamation at the Wilkes-Barre Academy. He was for forty years a member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, one of its trustees from 1887 to his death, its president in 1881, and vice-president 1887-1890, and did much to advance its interests and usefulness. He read before the society in 1900, "The Early Grist Mills of Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania."
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