Ancestors

Jacob Hamman

Jacob Hamman was born on 12 April 1824 near Strasburg, in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. That is the date in a biographical sketch printed in 1897, while he was still alive, and every census of his adult life agrees with it. He was 27 in 1850, 35 in 1860, 46 in 1870 and 56 in 1880, and in 1900 he gave his birth as April 1824. His gravestone, cut after his death in 1902, says he was 85, which would put his birth in 1817. In his lifetime the family name was written Hammond or Hammon, and it later settled into Hamman.

His parents were Peter and Sarah Hammond. The 1897 sketch says his grandfather, also named Peter Hammond, was a native of Germany and one of the first settlers at Hummelstown in Dauphin County. He farmed there and at one time owned large tracts of land, and he died in Dauphin County.

Jacob's father was born at Hummelstown and grew up and married there. Shortly after the wedding he was obliged to sell his property to pay a bail that had been forfeited. He had friends in Franklin County, so he loaded his family and goods into wagons and moved there, settling near Strasburg. In Dauphin County he had farmed, but the sketch calls him "a ready workman" who "could succeed in almost anything he undertook," and in Franklin County his work was varied. He enlisted for the War of 1812 and had started out to join his regiment when peace was declared. He died in Path Valley, Franklin County, about 1850, aged seventy five.

Jacob went to school in Franklin County until he was eleven. Then he moved with his older brother Peter to a farm Peter had bought in Cromwell Township, Huntingdon County. His mother died when he was twelve. He stayed with his brother, going to school and working on the farm, until he was fifteen. After that he hired himself out to farmers in Franklin and Huntingdon Counties.

In 1842, in Cromwell Township, he married Sarah Rinker, a daughter of Benjamin Rinker. They had nine children: Martin, Calvin, Melissa, Peter, Elizabeth, Margaret, Benjamin, Ellen and Sarah. Their little daughter Ellen, written Elender on the family stone, died in 1848 at two. Melissa, still at home at eleven in 1860, died before 1897. Sarah died in 1859 by the family stone, or 1862 by the sketch. The census taken in July 1860 already shows Rebecca as Jacob's wife, so Sarah was dead before that summer.

For several years Jacob rented a farm. In 1856 he bought his own, a farm of 150 acres. He kept adding to it, and by 1897 he owned 5,000 acres. The sketch calls him "a self-made man, one who has always 'hoed his own row,'" and says he was a Republican who never sought office. His post office then was Orbisonia.

The censuses follow the household through Cromwell Township. In 1850 Jacob Hammon, 27, a farmer, lived there with Sarah, 28, and their sons Martin, 7, Calvin, 5, and Peter, 2. Two doors away was a John Hammon, 49, a laborer, with a wife Mariah and six children.

On 30 July 1860 the household had a new mother. Jacob, 35, was living with Rebecca, 33, and all eight of Sarah's surviving children: Martin, 17, Calvin, 16, Peter, 14, Benjamin, 13, Malissa, 11, Mariah, 9, Mary, 7, and Sarah, 5. Their post office was Mount Union.

By 1870 the older boys had gone. Jacob, 46, and Rebecca, 42, had Benjamin, 19, Mariah, 15, Margaret, 14, and Sarah, 12, from the first family, and John, 7, Hannah J., 5, Samantha, 4, William, 2, a girl of 3 entered as Theodooria, and an infant son entered as Burtin from the second. In 1880 Jacob Hamman, 56, was still farming in Cromwell Township with Rebecca, 51, and their children Jennie and John, 17, Semantha, 15, Rhoda, 14, William, 12, Elliott, 8, and Louisa, 6. Barton Shore, 25, lived with them.

The census taker came again on 7 June 1900. Jacob Hammond was 76 and still a farmer, on a farm he owned under a mortgage. He and Rebecca, 72, had been married 40 years, and she had borne eight children, seven of them still living. In the very next house on the same sheet lived their son Elliott, 28, a farmer on a mortgaged farm of his own, with his wife Jane and their four small children.

His second wife was Rebecca Booth, a daughter of William and Jane Booth. They had nine children: Robert, John, Jennie, Belle, Rhoda, William, Harrison, Elliott and Louisa. Robert and Harrison died before 1897. Elliott Howard, born on 18 April 1871, was among the youngest.

Jacob died on 14 August 1902 in Huntingdon County. His stone gives his age as 85. He is buried in Monroe Valley Cemetery at Rockhill Furnace, under one marker with his first wife Sarah, their daughter Elender and his second wife Rebecca.

If Jacob Hamman is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Jacob Hamman (1824-1902)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jacob-hamman-1817-1902-55420c.