Minerd.com Biography of Joseph Benton and Priscilla B. (Farr) White of Hopwood, PA

Joseph Benton White
(1848-1873)

Hopwood Cemetery

Joseph Benton White was born in 1848 near Uniontown, PA, the son of Perry G. and Charlotte (McClatchey) White. He was a veteran of the Civil War, but died after the war of effects of the hardships of soldier life.

When Joseph was about the age of 10, in 1858, his mother died. Within a few years, his father married again, to Mariah Minerd. She thus became Joseph's step-mother.

Joseph stood 5 feet 4 inches, with gray eyes and dark hair, and was a farmer. After the Civil War broke out, Joseph at age 17 enlisted in the 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery on Jan. 12, 1864. He was assigned to Company K. The details of his wartime military service are not known.

After the war ended, Joseph mustered out Jan. 29, 1866 at City Point, VA. Later that year, however, he re-enlisted in the regular Army, Co. E, 16th U.S. Infantry, on Dec. 6, 1866 for a three-year term. He was on duty at Augusta, Macon and Atlanta, GA, from 1867 to 1868.

Grave of Joseph and Priscilla at Hopwood

In 1869, while on detachment at Decatur, AL, he became sick with "chills and fever" in "a malarious district" and "was unable to move with his detachment when it rejoined the regiment..." Joseph remained ill for 18 months. Later, he was stationed at Patona, Huntsville and Summerville, AL. He was discharged at Huntsville on Dec. 6, 1869, and returned home with some of the medicine he had obtained in the Army.

On Jan. 9, 1870, at the age of 22, Joseph entered into marriage with 22-year-old Priscilla B. Farr (May 24, 1849-1922), the daughter of Moses and Mary Ann (Hatfield) Farr and granddaughter of John and Lucinda (Hopwood) Farr. The couple's nuptials were conducted at the Fairchance Iron Works, Fayette County.

Priscilla appears to have spent part of her youth in the home of David and Lucinda Grove of Fayette County, and was enumerated in their household in the 1860 federal census.

Together, during the span of their three-year married lives together, Joseph and Priscilla produced a family of two children -- Minnie Annette White and Benton "Lucas" White.

Sadly, their baby Minnie died at the tender age of 10 months and 1 day, on Dec. 12, 1871. The cause of her passing seems to be lost to history. She was laid to rest in the Hopwood Cemetery. In a moving obituary authored by "H. Lucas," a Uniontown newspaper said:

It was indeed hard for weeping parents and friends to let her go, but the Christian parents said they were resigned to the will of God, and freely delivered her up to Him who was more able to protect her. "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." May parents and child meet in a better country, where there will be no more parting, and no more death.

Joseph worked as a laborer on the National Turnpike (now Route 40) and lived near his father and step-mother. But he was "very much troubled with cough, had a severe hemorrhage of the lung and sunk rapidly after that."

Adding to the family's legacy of untimely deaths, Joseph passed away at age 25, at Hopwood (Monroe), PA, on April 14, 1873 and is buried at Hopwood Cemetery. While a standard issue military grave marker stands on his grave, a larger marble shaft, with Priscilla's name, was added later.

Priscilla made her residence in Hopwood for the remaining nearly 50 years of her very active social and community life. She dwelled in a prominent, two-story house she inherited from her parents. She later sold it to James R. Barnes, a self-made coal and coke dealer who was the son of Staten and Martha Ann (Tibbs) Barnes, and grandson of Thomas and Eliza (Trader) Barnes.

Old postcards showing James R. Barnes' summer residence, thought to have been built in 1906 on land formerly belonging or adjacent to Priscilla's.

The June 1907 edition of the Hopwood Chronicle contained an article about her dwelling-place:

One of Hopwood's old landmarks was torn down in the last few days. It was the old house purchased by James R. Barnes from Mrs. Priscilla B. White, who owned it for [many] years. It belonged to her grandparents, John and Lucinda Hopwood Farr in 1812, and was built 150 years ago. The street upon which this old house was built was called Main street many years ago, when the town was called Woodstock, this was before the Pike was built.

The August 1908 issue of the Hopwood Chronicle reported that "A festival was held at the home of Mrs. P.B. White ... for the purpose of getting money to clean out the old cemetery on the hill. It was well attended and a good amount raised."

White family gathering in Hopwood - click to see in super-enlarged detail.

Priscilla was said to be "one of [Fayette] county's most ardent church workers," who taught Sunday School at the Hopwood Methodist Church for 50 years and served on the church board of stewards for 36 years.

In 1916, she received word that her brother R.M. Farr, of Hettinger, ND, whom she had not seen for two decades since their father's death, would be coming for a visit.

In her later years, Priscilla developed diabetes which led to gangrene of her left foot and leg. At the age of 73, she succumbed to the spectre of death on April 16, 1922 at Hopwood. Her husband's step-cousin, Rev. David Ewing Minerd, the famed "Blacksmith Preacher" of Fayette County, officiated at her funeral service at Hopwood Cemetery.