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Ursina, the small mountain borough hard by Laurel Hill Creek in southern Somerset County, PA, was settled circa 1763 by Andrew Ream and later occupied by his son John, whose second of three wives was our Catherine Minerd. In a paragraph about the Minerds in the 1882 book History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, our John is referred to as “the founder of Ursina village.”
Another book, the 1884 History of Bedford, Somerset and Fulton Counties, says that John “was probably born in Loudoun County [VA] about 1759. Early in life he came to Turkey-Foot and lived upon the Ream farm, where Ursina now is. He died in 1839. He was married three times. His first wife died in 1792… caused by the bite of a snake; in twenty-four hours she was dead." John paid £875 for this land in 1805 in a buyout from his brothers and their wives who all had inherited it a few years before. It contained valuable stands of white walnut, black and white oak, sugar and beech.
Over the ensuing decades, the count of the Reams’ offspring swelled into remarkably large numbers. For example, John’s son Samuel produced 13 children and 79 known grandchildren -- son Thomas Sr. had six children, 22 grandchildren and at least 80 great-grandchildren -- daughter Mary Ann Weyand bore eight children and had at least nine grandchildren -- and daughter Catherine Jennings produced six children and at least four grandchildren.
Generations of our cousins of the extended Minerd, Harbaugh and Younkin families have dwelled in and around Ursina ever since. One the most famous was a great-grandson, Norman Bruce Ream, who survived two Civil War wounds and a disastrous fire and then migrated to Chicago, where he helped build some of the nation's mightiest industrial and cultural empires. In doing so, he became a friend and trusted confidante to some of the giants of the Windy City, including Marshall Field, Cyrus McCormick and Robert T. Lincoln, son of the president. He later moved to New York City, working with other influential businessmen, among them John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. When United States Steel Corporation was founded in 1901, as the nation’s first billion-dollar company, he was elected as an inaugural board director. It's said that during his business heyday, Norman frequently rode the B&O Railroad, often taking a route along Laurel Hill Creek past his hometown of Ursina and so he could view the graveyard where his mother rested.
Ursina and the neighboring community of Confluence are part of the broader, well-known Turkeyfoot region. A young British officer, George Washington, camped nearby with his troops on May 20, 1754, writing in his diary, "we gained Turkey-foot, by the Beginning of the Night." Just eight days later, his men ambushed a French army officer, igniting the French and Indian War. President Thomas Jefferson referred to the area in his book Notes on the State of Virginia, saying “A salt spring has been lately discovered at the Turkey foot on Yohogany, by which river it is overflowed, except at very low water. Its merit is not yet known.”
Its name is taken from the Latin “Ursus,” or "bear," a play on the name of local Judge William J. Baer, who authorized a formal survey of town lots just after the Civil War. Judge Baer is known for purchasing the mineral rights of several of the Minerd farms at the nearby village of Kingwood during the years after the war’s end. A rail line was added just across the creek in the 1870s which later became part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The borough’s population as of 2020 was 244.
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Copyright © 2024 Mark A. Miner |
