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Samuel Younkin Sr. |
Samuel Younkin was born on Aug. 18, 1797 in Turkeyfoot Township, Somerset County, PA, the son of Jacob and Hannah (Nicola) Younkin Sr.
He was christened in infancy in the Sanner Church of nearby Milford Township. He was a young teenager in 1811 when his father died. In December 1813, his uncle Frederick was named as his and his sister Catherine's legal guardian.
Samuel in his youth and young manhood was a member of the Jersey Baptist Church of nearby Ursina.
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| Letter by a grandson about Samuel's departure from Pennsylvania |
On May 22, 1819, he entered into matrimony with 18-year-old Rachel Deitz (Dec. 5, 1800-1870), also from Turkeyfoot. There is evidence that the marriage did not sit well with some in Samuel's family. Accordingly, the young couple decided to leave for good. In preparing to depart family, friends and home, Samuel asked the Jersey church for a letter of dismissal.
A grandson, Clarence Lincoln Younkin, wrote this memory in 1939, some 120 years later, with some of the facts about Samuel's father incorrect and distorted in the retelling of their fateful decision:
Samuel who left Turkeyfoot Hollow in a tift at Home account of his early marriage at age of 19 to Rachel Dietz right in that locality. He asked his Father (Henry to help him get a start but it seemed there was more favoritism shown for others. So he grew Bull Headed, took his young wife got to the Ohio River & drifted down on a flat Boat... & from then on all History of Parents or Rel[atives] were lost he never red a word or wrote. He seems to of exiled him self.
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| Pittsburgh, 1817, 2 years before the Younkins boarded a flatboat on the Ohio River and floated to their new home and adventures in Ohio. |
The newlyweds then embarked on their voyage, likely traveling to Pittsburgh and thence "going down the Ohio river on a raft," remembered another grandson, John King Younkin. They "settled for a while" at Marietta, OH, "following his trade as a potter. They moved from there to Hamilton County, Ohio, near Cincinnati."
There, in Jeffersonville, Clark County, OH, he and Rachel again were joined in wedlock on June 24, 1820. John Carr officiated. Why a second ceremony was needed is not known, except that the young couple may have been lacking proper documentation of the first one after arriving in their new habitat.
Together, the pair went on to bear a brood of nine children -- Andrew Jackson Younkin, Dorothy "Ann" Gross, Elisabeth Younkin, Cyrus Sylvester Younkin, Roxylenia Younkin, Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Younkin, Minerva Muter, Samuel Younkin and John Deitz Younkin.
The federal census enumeration of 1820 shows the couple making their dwelling-place in Charlestown, Clark County, IN.
Their dwelling-place in 1830 was in Union Township, Butler County, OH.
Census records for 1840 place the Younkins in Springfield Township, Hamilton County, OH.
Then in 1850, with Samuel continuing as a potter, they dwelled in Fairfield Township, Butler County, OH. Sons Cyrus, Frank and Samuel Jr. assisted in the pottery business at that time. In 1850, six-year-old Margaretta Younkin was in their household.
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| Above: the historic fight of Tippecanoe in 1811 on land near where Rachel (Deitz) Younkin and son John lived in the mid-1850s. (Kurz & Allison; Library of Congress) Below: Gen. William Henry Harrison, who won that battle, and the obelisk that marks the field today. (Library of Congress) |
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Sadly, Samuel succumbed to the angel of death on Sept. 5, 1855. No newspaper obituary has been found, nor has his burial site. Grandson Clarence Lincoln Younkin believed that he "died and Burried at Greenville Ohio at age of 47 of milk sickness."
Rachel survived her husband by 15 years and may have been entirely dependent on her youngest son John for support. They moved to Indiana, where the United States Census shows her at age 59, residing with 22-year-old son in Rainsville, Warren County, IN, with him earning a living as a potter. In time they relocated to Battle Ground, Tippecanoe County, IN.
She died in Battle Ground at the age of 69 years, 10 months on Aug. 17, 1870. An obituary in the Louisville (KY) Courier Journal said she was a "sister of George W. Dietz, of this city, and one of seven brothers and sisters, varying from 69 to 84 years of age... [and] had resided sixty-three years in Indiana." Interment was in Battle Ground Cemetery. A stone is known to have been placed at the grave.
At the creation of this biography in 2024, in addition to their nine children, the headcount of the Younkins' offspring included 23 grandchildren and 99 great-grandchildren, a number that may go up as more research is done.
~ Daughter Elisabeth Younkin ~
Daughter Elisabeth Younkin (1825- ? ) was born in 1825.
Her life story is obscured by the thick shroud of the past. Did she die young?
~ Daughter Roxylenia Younkin ~
Daughter Roxylenia Younkin (1828- ? ) was born in about 1828.
Nothing more about her life is known, other than that her brother Benjamin Franklin Younkin appears to have named one of his daughters for her.
~ Son Samuel Younkin Jr. ~
Son Samuel Younkin Jr. (1835-1852?) was born on June 13, 1835 in Ohio.
Not much is known of his short life. When the federal census enumeration was made in 1850, the teenager lived under his parents' roof in Fairfield, Butler County, OH. Following in their father's trade, he worked in the pottery business that year with his brothers Cyrus and Frank.
Sadly, at the age of 16 or 17, circa 1852, he died in Mercer County, OH. The cause of his untimely demise may be lost to history.
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Copyright © 2016-2017, 2024-2025 Mark A. Miner |
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Research for this page graciously shared by the late Merrill Vernon Younkin, the late Olive (Rowan) Duff and the late Donna (Younkin) Logan. |