More on Jacob Suiter

When I checked a map for the town of Chesapeake, Ohio, I discovered that it is on the Ohio River across from Huntington, WV. I was amazed because I was in Huntington in May and had no idea that I was practically gazing at the site of an ancestral home.

Here's a picture of the Ohio River taken from the West Virginia side at Point Pleasant.

I found a historical article at rootsweb lawrence county which mentions my ancestors Jacob and Margaret Suiter. I don't know how accurate it was; obviously, some spellings are wrong. Is Jeremiah another name for my ggg-grandfather Israel Suiter?

Next below, about 1798 settled Jacob SUITER (*). His wife's maiden name was Margaret MASTERS. Their children were Hiram, William, Phillip, Jeremiah and Mordecai. Hiram was killed by the falling of a scaffold in middle age. Phillip has been married four times, is now living some fifteen miles from me, and is a respectable man. One of his sons went into the army in our late war, a sergeant, came out a captain, and is now the Recorder of Scott Co., Iowa. William is dead and Mordecai lives in Kansas and is a preacher.

SUITER for some time lived with his brother-in-law Joseph CRANK (*), a quiet and peaceable man. He was celebrated for making the finest canoes that run this part of the river. CRANK was a religious man. He conducted the first funeral I was ever at...

---

Comment: Peggy writes: This is the other side of the family, however, from the underground railroad story. That story comes from Mom's Grandma Lila -- Elida Belle Harper (don't know her maiden name offhand). The story goes that her father (our GGGrandfather) was the pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Philadelphia. When Elida was a little girl, she woke up extra early one morning, went downstairs and was astonished to find a strange man, a black man, eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Her father sternly admonished her never to tell anyone about it.

No idea if it's true, but I prefer to believe it is.... "