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The Hexebarger Farm of Henry and Polly (Younkin) Minerd |
After the death of his mother in 1847, Henry Minerd and his wife Polly (Younkin) inherited a 123-acre farm in Hexebarger near the village of Kingwood, Somerset County, PA. His parents had purchased the farm as part of a larger tract some 10 years earlier, from the heirs of Chew and Wilcocks, and probably had dwelled on it for many years prior to that.
Henry and Polly's children grew up on this hilly farm -- among them John Minerd, Ephraim Minerd, Chauncey "Chance" Miner, Henry Harrison Minerd, Susan Birch, Andrew Jackson Miner, Nancy Farabee, Sarah Minerd, Elias Minor, Jacob Minerd and Catherine Bedillion.
For reasons not yet known, the Minerds sold the farm to Alexander Rhodes just two years after they had formally had acquired it. Rhodes lived there circa 1860. The tract later was conveyed to Polly's sister and brother in law Sarah and John F. Kreger (1876) and thence to cousins Irvin and Alice "Almeda" (Phillippi) Younkin, who would have raised their children there -- Anna "Annie" Younkin, Venia L. Younkin, Pearl Younkin, Herman Sanford Younkin, Harry Victor Younkin and Catherine "Katie" Younkin. After Irvin's untimely death in 1895, the farm was purchased by his brother Milton Bruce "M.B." Younkin (both were sons of Rev. Herman Younkin). M.B., a shopkeeper in Rockwood, was married to Minnie Sechler and had these three sons: James Clyde Younkin, Morris R. Younkin and Harry B. Younkin
After the end of the Civil War, when a Christian revival movement swept through the area in 1866, a local pastor, Elder John A. Plowman, held a series of preaching services on the land. There was so much interest that a church was established nearby, known today as the Old Bethel Chuch of God. Church historian Harrison Grant King once wrote that "It was during this year that the brothers and sisters under their pastor's leadership again and for the third time erected large tents on what is now known as the Irwin Younkin Farm for the purpose of holding another good old camp meeting and which was held but not till after some wicked person or persons had burned them to the ground and the undaunted soldiers of Christ had again erected their tents on the sie where the former ones had stood."
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Copyright © 2018 Mark A. Miner