Strawser Lineage

Helen was born in 1909 in Tunnelton, Preston County, West Virginia to Charles Strawser and Evalina Martin. Her mother was her father's 2nd wife, so, although Helen was her mother's first child, she was born into a house already filled with 5 children from her father’s first wife who had died in childbirth to baby Annie. Between his 2 wives, Charles had 17 children (5 by Anna Margaret Kercheval and 12 by Eva). The house was on "No. 4 Hill" (now No. 4 road / South Street) about half way up the hill from the town Tunnelton.

Her father worked as a coal miner and farmed 34 acres which he owned. When Helen was a baby, one of her older half brothers (Loyal, Noble or Roy) poked her in the eye with a pin leaving it blind and grey. The wood-frame house was the first house to have electricity on the hill. Her father wanted to be the first but died right before it was turned on in 1930.

She stopped going to school after the 8th grade. Being one of the older girls in the house Helen was tasked with caring for the house and her 10 younger siblings, and probably why she left home (only two others of her siblings left West Virginia). Shortly before or soon after her father died, she headed for Pittsburgh, PA where met Earnest Thornton who also had come north to Pittburgh from Radford, Virginia to find work.

Although their first daughter Wanda Harriet was born in Preston County in 1931, Helen soon moved to the North Side, Pittsburgh to be with Earnest. There she had 3 more children - Eva, Virginia (Babe), and Charles Paul. Things were going well - Earnest was working doing house painting and even started his own watch repair business. But then he began drinking and gambling. He would tell Helen to "dream up some numbers" for him to play. He was abusive, beating the children with switches. She finally kicked him out. He hit rock bottom when he got arrested for shooting at someone during a bar fight, and he was sentenced to 60 days on the work farm. After he was released, he enlisted in the army in 1942 at the age of 40, but was not called to served and was discharged 3 months later.

So Earnest was trying to turn his life around and Helen let him return home. But within a couple years, he overdosed on sleeping pills he had been prescribed for "stomach issues" and died, leaving her a widow with 4 young children. But she and the children were relieved by his death (7 year old son Charles Paul sat in the coal bin and laughed when he learned of his father's death according to family).

The family was fraught with tragedy. Two of Helen’s children, Charles Paul and Eva, became severely mentally ill and were institutionalized much of their adult lives. In 1965, her son Charles Paul was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after he tried to stab Helen. Her eldest daughter Wanda Harriet and her daughter Linda were murdered in 1970 by Linda's boyfriend in front of Linda's son. Helen's sister Ruth was also mentally ill and hospitalized often.

Helen never remarried. She lived most of the rest of her life on Arch Street on the North Side in Pittsburgh. Helen died of a stroke at the age of 70 in Coraopolis, PA in 1979.

Earnest Monroe Thornton was the eldest of 3 boys, born in 1902 in Radford, Virginia a few blocks up the hill from the Foundry where many in the family worked. They lived a few houses from his father's parents.

In 1908, when he was 6, his father Giles Monroe ("Nonie") drowned when his boat capsized while crossing the sNew River near their house to get some watermelons. Ten years later, his mother Agnes, who supported the family washing clothes, died, probably from the Spanish Flu. Earnest (then about 16) and his brother Emmett went to live with their grandparents George and Hattie, and brother Marvin went to live with Aunt Minnie nearby. Earnest left school when he was 9 (3rd grade).

Around 1928 at the beginning of the Great Depression Earnest moved to North Side, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Around this time he met his wife Helen Strawser (born in Preston County, WV). He worked various jobs and eventually became a watchmaker.

Earnest and Helen had 4 children - Wanda Harriet, Eva, Virginia (Babe), and Charles Paul Monroe. Things seemed to be going well for them, but he drank and gambled, and was a mean, abusive man. In 1940, after Helen had kicked him out, he was arrested for shooting at someone during a fight and sentenced to 60 days at the county work farm. He was 5'11", 183 lbs, with blue eyes.

In 1942 he briefly enlisted in the Army at the age of 40 but was not called on to serve (probably due to his age) and was discharged 3 months later. He and Helen got back together, but only a few years later in 1944 he died from an overdose of sleeping pills. His 7-year-old son Paul is said to have "sat in the coal bucket and laughed."

Charles William Strawser was born in 1878 near Tunnelton in Preston County, West Virginia to John William Strawser and Melinda "Linn" Belle Loraw, the 2nd of 9 children. They lived on a farm in the Union District. In 1880 they lived next door to his uncle Henry Strawser and great grandmother Mary Whitehair.

In 1899 Charles married Anna Margaret Kercheval. Anna's sister Bessie would later married Charles' brother Howard. For the first few years they lived with his parents and Charles worked as a coal miner. In 1907 Anna died at the age of 25 giving birth to their 5th child Anna (the baby lived).

The next year in 1908, Charles remarried to Evaline "Evie" Martin. She was 17, he was 29 with 5 children by his first wife, including baby Anna (when Charles married his first wife, Evie was only 10 years old and still living with her parents). Evie's first child with Charles was Helen Lucille, born a year later, the first of 12, for a total of 17 children between his two wives.

Charles worked as a coal miner for Hillman Coal Company and farmed 34 acres. Several of his children worked in the mines. He was described as medium height, black eyes and black hair. He did well enough to own his house with 2 acres plus another plot of 32 acres that he farmed.

He died in 1930 at the age of 51, just weeks before electricity was hooked up to his home.

Evie Martin was born in 1890 in Tunnelton, West Virginia to Charles Martin and Leah Knaggs. Her father was a coal miner. She was her parents' 6th child of 11 children.

In 1908, at the age of 19, Evie married Charles William Strawser, 29, a widower with 5 children by his first wife. They married at her father's house where she still lived. She had 12 children by Charles (he had a total of 17). Charles was a coal miner and farmer. They lived in a wood frame house on the road above Tunnelton. Several of her children worked in the mines.

In 1930, Charles died at the age of 51. She was left with __ children still at home, ranging in ages of __. A couple years later she married Charles Hartsaw. She seems to have left her children in the care of her son Hubert back in Tunnelton because she and her new husband lived in Grafton where she had one more daughter (Margaret).

Evie died in 1937 at the ae of 47 when Margaret was 6 in Grafton, Taylor County, West Virginia. She was buried in West Cemetery in Tunnelton along with her first husband Charles and her son Charles. Margaret was raised by cousins of her father in Elkins, and took on their name Coberly.

Charles was born in 1858 in Independence, Preston County, Virginia (before West Virginia became a state), the 7th child of Thomas and Catherine Martin. They had moved from Pennsylvania a few years before he was born. His father, who worked as a house carpenter, enlisted in the Union army in December 1863, a few months after West Virginia was admitted into the Union. He served until the end of the war, and was stationed at Appomattix when Lee surrendered.

After the war the family moved to Pruntytown in nearby Taylor County. Charles' father died in 1874 at the age of 51, possibly due to the hardship during the war. The family then moved a few miles away to Ironton where Charles worked as a coal miner. That's where Charles met his future wife Leah Catherine Knaggs.

In January 1880 Charles and Leah married. He was 22, she was 21. They lived in Irontown a few houses from her parents and started their family.

By 1888 Charles and Leah had moved to Independence in Preston County and had 5 children. By 1900 they had 10 children. In 1901, their 11 and final child Flo was born and daughter Nora died at the age of 19. Also during this period, Leah purchased various plots of land in Preston County. Charles and Leah and all of the children could read and write. In 1908, at the age of 19, their daughter Evie married Charles William Strawser, 29, a coal miner and widower with 5 children by his first wife. They married at her father's house where she still lived.

By 1910, they were listed in Tunnelton where Leah died in 1911, leaving Charles to care for 5 children (ages 23-9) still at home, including 23-year-old daughter Emma and her 2 year old daughter Hazel (probably born out of wedlock as they both still used the her maiden name Martin). He was buried next to Leah at Shay's Chapel Cemetery near Tunnelton.

Nine months later on Christmas day, Charles married Mary Elizabeth Shahan, 56, who had just lost her 2nd husband in May. I'm not sure how they knew each other, but word tended to get around about two widowers with children looking for spouses. Mary's second husband was an Ashby, a name I noticed in connection with the Loraws. Mary had had 10 children with her first two husbands. Her first husband was originally from England.

Charles worked most of his life as a coal miner and did a little farming. He even rose up to mine foreman by the time of his death. He died at the age of 63 in 1918 of acute nephritis following flu (probably Spanish Flu). After he died, Mary cared for his remaining children and ran a boarding house to support herself.

Leah was born in Hainseville, Berkeley County, Virginia around 1861 to John Knaggs and Susan O'Dell. In 1864 her father enlisted in the Civil War. He returned nearly crippled with rheumatism from wading through freezing rivers and exposure. In 1870 the family had moved to Taylor County, where her father struggled to support the family. They often had to rely on friends and neighbors for food and help. When Leah was 18, she married Charles Martin in Taylor County. Five years later her sister Minnie married Charles' brother George in 1885.

Charles and Leah lived near her parents at first before moving to Preston County, (Rowelsburg, Kingwood, and finally Tunnelton). Charles was a miner and did a little farming. I found several purchases of land that she made. They had 11 total children before she died with an estate worth $1500.

Leah's paternal Knagg line is supposed to be Dutch, likely her paternal grandfather.

John William Strawser was born in 1855 in Preston County, Virginia (now West Virginia) to Henry Jackson Strawser and Susanna Wolfe. They lived on a farm next door to his mother's parents and brother. He was the 2nd of 9 children. He was 6 years old when the war broke out. His father registered for the draft in 1864 but I didn't find any record that he served. They were farmers.

In 1875 he married Melinda "Linn" Loraw. She was 19. He was 20. They lived next door to his parents. They had 7 children, only one of whom died young. John died around 1908 at the age of 53.

Melinda Belle Loraw was born in 1856 to William Loraw and Margaret Little in Allegheny County, Maryland near Oakland. She was the 2nd of 7 children.

In 1875 she married John Strawser in nearby Preston County, West Virginia. Preston and Allegheny Counties are adjacent to each other across the state line. Oakland is only about 30 miles from Tunnelton. They lived on a farm adjacent to his parents. They had 7 children, only one of whom died young, several of whom worked as miners.

About 1908, John died at the age of 50. Her youngest was 8 at the time. She married Robert Deavers, also a widower with children. It doesn't appear she had any more children with Robert. His son Allen lived nearby her son Charles in 1910.

Melinda died in 1922 in Tunnelton at the age of 65 of "apoplexy" due to chronic nephritis and arteriosclorosis. Informant was her brother Jesse of Crellan, Maryland. Family lore said she was part Cherokee. Her name had been mistranscribed as Malmicla Lewarsh. But DNA has proven we have zero indigenous blood. She was buried in West Cemetery where her son Charles Strawser was buried 8 years later.

William Loraw was born in Maryland in 1832 or 33. At the age of 19 he was living with Jesse and Hannah Ashby. In 1855, at the age of 21, he married Margaret Little. He worked as a mechanic and a carpenter. They lived next door to Henry, 50, who also worked as a mechanic, and wife Sarah. Henry may be his uncle.

In December 1861, William enlisted in the Union army (West Virginia 6th Regiment) and served along side his brother Enoch. The regiment was recruited and mustered into service with the express proviso that it was to serve as guard duty upon the lines of the Baltimore and Ohio and Northwestern Virginia Railroads. In November 1864 he was captured in New Creek, Virginia during Rosser's Raid. He was sent to Richmond where he was paroled 3 months later.

After the war he set up as a mill wright. Margaret died in 1871 after her 6th child with William.

He remarried Elvira Sophia Miller, possibly in Preston County, and had 7 more children with her, both in West Virginia and in Maryland, for a total of 14 children. In 1877 he began receiving an invalid pension for his service in the war.

They finally ended up in Preston County where he died and was buried. Elvira received a widow's pension.

The records differ as to where Margaret was born. Some say Virginia and others say Germany. In 1855 she married William Loraw probably in Oakland, Maryland. They had 4 children when the Civil War broke out and her husband enlisted in the Union Army. Despite being captured, he survived and they had 3 more children before she died.

John Knaggs was born near Winchester in Frederick County, Virginia in 1820 according to the records, although family stories tell of him coming as a child from England with his parents John and Mary and brother George. In 1839 through about 1842, his father was the manager for 700-acre farm owned by Charles James Faulkner, a wealthy politician and attorney who had a large estate in Berkeley County between Martinsville and Winchester. Faulkner owned over 1000 acres altogether as well as slaves and prize bulls. In 1840, John's father was also listed in the census with his own farm nearby with 6 slaves.

In September 1842, John married Susan O'Dell in Winchester. By this time, John and his father were struggling financially, probably because Faulkner had sold the farm and John's father was trying to make it on his own. About this time he and/or his father settled a debt of $352 to a man named Chambers with personal property on Dry Run Farm ("Dry Run" is a small creek northwest of Martinsburg). The next year John Jr. and his father signed over their interest in grain crops to a Mr. Waite to settle another debt of $127.

By 1860 John and Susan were living in Hainesville, in nearby Berkeley County with 6 kids ages 2 to 16. He was working as a laborer with a personal estate worth only $30.

When the war began in 1861, he was 40 years old, so didn't have to enlist immediately. He was working for B&O Rail Road. Sometime in the next couple of years they moved to Taylor County, West Virginia where he enlisted September 1, 1864, at the age of 43. He mustered into the 17th West Virginia Infantry (Union) for $100 bounty. Sons William and Joseph also served in the Union Army in different regiments. His son John was only 12 at the time and family lore says he was a messenger boy for the Union forces. His company camped at Bulltown in Braxton County to patrol the area for a couple months where he was part of scouting parties. Exposure and wading through icy rivers and snow caused severe rheumatism that plagued him the rest of his life and gave him a limp. He was transferred to cook duty. His Company then moved on to Clarksburg, WV to guard the railroad until the end of the war. [Note - another of my ancestors - William Wagner - was stationed there at the same time.] Knaggs Family History claims he and 1 one of his sons served in the civil war on the Rebel side, but records show they all served the Union.

After the war, John and Susan lived in Fetterman, Preston County for a few years and then to a few miles away to Irontown near daughter Leah and her husband Charles Martin. They were very poor because he could not work and survived thanks to the kindness of their neighbors. They had 11 total children. He died in Independence, Preston County in 1894 at the age of 73. Susan died 7 years later.

Thomas B. Martin was born in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania in 1823. His parents are not known. In 1844 he married Catharine Beard and by 1850 they had moved 70 miles east to Johnstown, PA, where he made his living as a carpenter. Around 1855, now with 5 children, the family moved to Preston County, (West) Virginia and they lived on James McGee's farm for a few years before moving to their own home near Independence by 1860.

In 1861 the Civil War broke out and in June 1863 West Virginia split off as its own state. Thomas joined the Union army in December '63, along with several from other branches of my ancestors who lived in the area - Christian Nine and his two brothers, and Francis Whitehair - all mustered into the same Company. Their regiment was in numerous battles, including at Cloyd's Mountain in Pulaski County where my Thornton ancestors lived (they were not connected yet). After the Lynchburg raid he became ill and for the rest of the war he struggled with his health and was hospitalized several times. But he kept going, even getting promoted to Corporal. He was part of the Fall of Petersburg and was stationed at Appomattox Court House April 9 for Lee's surrender.

After the war he continued to struggle with his health and supporting Catharine and the children (12 total) was increasingly difficult. In 1870, the census lists 15 people in the household, the youngest, 5-month-old Della and eldest Martha 23 and her new husband. Catharine's widow pension file contains numerous affidavits describing his lung disease which he contracted during the war. He died 9 years later in 1874 at home in Franklin Furnace, Taylor County. He had grey eyes, brown hair, fair complexion, 5'8".

Catharine A. Beard was born in Pennsylvania around 1825. Her parents are not known. In 1844 she married Thomas B. Martin in Huntingdon County. By 1850 they had moved about 70 miles east to Johnstown where Thomas worked as a carpenter. Around 1855 they had moved to Preston County and they had 5 children. At first they lived on the farm of James McGee near Independence.

Her 12 and final child Della was born when Catharine was 45.

John Knaggs was born around 1780, possibly in England. Family stories tell of him coming from England with his wife Mary and children John and George. Records show John born in 1820 near Winchester in Frederick County, Virginia.

In 1839 through about 1842, he managed a 700-acre stock farm owned by Charles James Faulkner, a wealthy politician and attorney who had a large estate in Berkeley County between Martinsville and Winchester. Faulkner owned over 1000 acres altogether as well as slaves and prize bulls. In 1840, John father was also listed in the census with his own farm nearby with 6 slaves and 5 others in the household. Faulkner put his farms up for sale in 1839, so John was likely working on his own after.

By 1842, John was struggling financially. About this time he had to settle a debt of $352 to a man named Chambers with personal property on Dry Run Farm ("Dry Run" is a small creek northwest of Martinsburg). The next year he and his son John signed over their interest in grain crops to a Mr. Waite to settle another debt of $127.

He disappears from the records after this. Son George later moved to the west and became lost to the family. I also have found no records regarding his wife or any other children. He probably died in Berkley County near Martinsburg.