John George Pfrimmer and Elizabeth Senn in Preparation for the Erection of a Monument to Them at Pfrimmer's Chapel
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THE DESCENDANTS OF JOHN GEORGE PFRIMMER And ELIZABETH SENN OF HARRISON COUNTY, INDIANA by Samuel Pfrimmer Hays Edition of June 2000 1 Contents Introduction: Exploring Pfrimmer Family History 3 I. The Pfrimmer Families in Alsace and 10 and America II. Descendants of John George Pfrimmer and 16 Elizabeth Senn Elizabeth Pfrimmer Winter 17 Samuel Pfrimmer 110 Catherine Pfrimmer Melton l93 Mary Pfrimmer Kenoyer 251 Christena Pfrimmer Wright Newbanks 333 John George Pfrimmer, Jr. 338 2 Introduction Exploring Pfrimmer Family History This account of the Pfrimmer family in Europe and America, with a special emphasis on the descendants of John George Pfrimmer, is the product of 90 years of research in family history. That long road begins in the first decade of the 20th century with research by my great- grandfather, Jacob Strange Pfrimmer and then advanced by my mother and father, Clara Ridley Pfrimmer and Clay Blaine Hays in the l920's. By the late l930's my own interest in the Pfrimmer family had been fully aroused and since then I have periodically continued the journey into the Pfrimmer story. Only now have I brought my records together into a single document, the history of the Pfrimmer family. As an introduction I will describe here some of the main steps in this 90-year venture. My great-grandfather, Jacob Strange Pfrimmer, was especially proud of his grandfather, John George Pfrimmer, as a leader of the United Brethren Church in Harrison County, Indiana, an early leader in the county's government and a medical doctor. Jacob Strange Pfrimmer left several accounts of the Pfrimmer family in his own writing, but, more important, from the viewpoint of family genealogy, he undertook to contact the grandchildren of John George Pfrimmer and Elizabeth Senn in preparation for the erection of a monument to them at Pfrimmer's Chapel. While he did not fulfill that objective during his lifetime - he died in l9l5 and the monument was not erected until l93l - his correspondence in the years between l905 and l9l5 that located his cousins, grandchildren of John George Pfrimmer and Elizabeth Senn is preserved to constitute the initial information from which later forays into family history evolved. He was particularly energetic in tracking down the descendants of the families of three children of John George Pfrimmer and Elizabeth Senn who had left Harrison Co., Elizabeth Pfrimmer Winter, Mary Pfrimmer Kenoyer and John George Pfrimmer, Jr. In the early l920's leaders of the United Brethren Church became interested in the career of John George Pfrimmer as an early U.B. Church leader - he founded the first United Brethren Sunday School west of the Alleghenies - and wrote about him in denominational newspapers, The Watchword and The Religious Telescope published in Dayton, Ohio. At the same time, my grandfather, Samuel Pfrimmer, son of Jacob Strange Pfrimmer Pfrimmer and my father took up further correspondence to extend knowledge of Pfrimmer genealogy, building on the initial inquiries of Jacob Strange Pfrimmer. As the decade wore on they were able to realize the dream of the Pfrimmer-Senn monument which was erected in l93l. The one daughter whose whereabouts had not yet been discovered was Catherine about which the family knew very little, thought had married a Gallimore but which by the time that the monument was created had led to firm knowledge in the county marriage records that she had married David Melton. Yet the whereabouts of the family had not yet been discovered. One relative with whom my parents kept in close touch was Bess Miller Hack from Indianapolis, Ind. who visited us from time to time at our home in Corydon, Ind. She was related to both my father through the Miller family since his grandmother was a Miller and to my mother through the Pfrimmers descended from the oldest daughter of John George Pfrimmer, Elizabeth, who had married Rev. John Levi Winter. Bess Hack seemed to be one of the few relatives who was interested in pursuing genealogy herself, but she was concentrating more on the Miller family. She also was actively searching for Revolutionary War records pertaining to John George Pfrimmer. On occasions of her visits to Corydon we invariably talked much about Pfrimmer/Winter family history. 3 This period of active searching into Pfrimmer family history came to a pause in the l930's but soon elicited my personal interest in Pfrimmer genealogy. At that time I was growing up in Corydon, Harrison Co., Indiana - in high school between l936 and l940 - with a firm personal knowledge of the deep roots of my family in Harrison County. Fourteen of my sixteen great-great grandparents and thirteen of my thirty-two great-great-great grandparents had lived and died in Harrison County and as a child I experienced first-hand much evidence of that history including cemeteries where they were buried, old "home places," and a network of relatives. Among these the Pfrimmer family was one of the most compelling. My mother's name was Clara Ridley Pfrimmer and Pfrimmer was my own middle name. My grandfather, Samuel Pfrimmer, lived with us as did his sister, Allie Pfrimmer McLaughlin until she died in l932. Six miles east of Corydon was the Pfrimmer farm, the farm where my great-parents, Jacob Strange Pfrimmer and Mary Elizabeth Lemmon had lived and which had been owned by the previous Pfrimmer generation. There were pictures of the farm, its cattle and its buildings which we poured over from time to time and there was the lot in the Cedar Hill Cemetery at Corydon, where my great-grandparents Pfrimmer, one of their daughters, and my own grandmother Pfrimmer were buried, graves on which we placed flowers each Decoration Day in late May. Most important, however, was Pfrimmer's Chapel, east of Corydon just before we came to the Pfrimmer Farm, a United Brethren Church which was an outgrowth of the first United Brethren Sunday School west of the Allegheny Mountains that John George Pfrimmer, had established early in the l9th century, on a piece of land granted to the congregation by Samuel Pfrimmer, the son of John George Pfrimmer. By the latter part of the l930's I vaguely remembered the dedication of the Pfrimmer-Senn memorial in l93l and knew full well the history of my ancestor; it provided a "Pfrimmer experience" which was deeply ingrained in me from my earliest years. It was also pointed out to me on many an occasion that the first capitol building of the State of Indiana, located then at Corydon, was built by three judges of the court of common pleas, of whom one was John George Pfrimmer. This was especially known because the State of Indiana was soon to take up the task of remodeling the current building, used as a county court house, in accordance with the original. These experiences were augmented by a number of more widespread Pfrimmer family contacts that my mother and grandfather maintained throughout the l930's while I was still in high school. There was, for example, Will Pfrimmer, from Kentland, Indiana, the "poet of the Kankakee" who travelled each year in his retirement from a cabin in northern Wisconsin to Florida and back and stopped by our house. He was received with mixed emotions because his ever-present cigar was not welcomed by my mother. But he brought stories of the Pfrimmer past and one of the poems in his two books in which they were collected was dedicated to "Sam", my grandfather. There was Uncle Walter Vennor who had married my grandfather's sister, Flora, and who now lived in Smithland, Kentucky but who returned occasionally for a visit after Aunt Flora had died. A granddaughter of Daniel Alexander Pfrimmer, Phoebe Pfrimmer Earls visited during the l930's and there were visits from the Iowa relatives including Irene Manbeck Rowland and Helen Pfrimmer Price. There were the Welkers of Indianapolis, descendants of a half-sister of Jacob Strange Pfrimmer and I remember visiting them once in Indanapolis with my Aunt Allie. There was frequent correspondence with Emma Meneray, descended of another half-brother, Samuel Hamilton Pfrimmer who lived in Santa Rosa, Calif. I visited her in l957 while teaching during the summer at the University of California at Berkeley. Closer to home was the family of Emma Pfrimmer Faith, daughter of Will Pfrimmer, 4 brother of my great-grandfather, Jacob Pfrimmer, whose daughter, Lenore LaHue, was one of my mother's very special friends. At some point in the late l930's when I was in high school this compelling immersion in Pfrimmer family experience began to turn into a more deliberate interest in Pfrimmer family history. Some of this came from the old letters left by Jacob Strange Pfrimmer. The contacts the family had made with United Brethren Church leaders continued and as early as l938 I corresponded with Rev. Hough, obtaining from him more information about John George Pfrimmer, especially as reported in the diary of another Church leader in Pennsylvania, Christian Newcomer. It covered events in Berks County, Pennsylvania in the early history of that Church and reported numerous religious activities of John George Pfrimmer My excitement in searching for Pfrimmer descendants, however, got a considerable boost from a visit to relatives at New Canton, Pike Co., Illinois when my father and I drove to Grinnell, Iowa in l938 to pick up my brother and bring him home for the summer. My father had corresponded with Pfrimmer relatives there, descendants of John George Pfrimmer, Jr., in the l920's and now renewed that contact. We were able to locate several of these relatives.