My Genealogy Hound

CHRISTIAN TRUNICK was born in Germany about 1770, and came to America at the age of twenty, settling in Allegheny county, Pa. Here he married Elizabeth Benny, and by her had eleven children: Elizabeth, Henry, James, Jane Eichbaun, Benny, William, John, Joseph, Nancy, Margaret, Mary. He continued to reside near Pittsburgh during his entire life, and died July 16, 1844, a man of quiet disposition and gentle manners. He was in early life employed at glassmaking, and was one of the first in that business at the O’Hara Glass-works, at south end of Point bridge. His children were examples of industry and simple habits. Five of his sons are yet living and active, all ranging between eighty and ninety-two years of age. Their mother was of Scotch-Irish parentage, and was endowed with great energy and force of will. She was the daughter of an officer in the English army, came to America in her youth, and received but little education. Her mother dying, her father again married and had a large family. One of his daughters married John Obey, a gentleman who was noted as a keeper of a popular house of entertainment at south end of Smithfield street bridge. She became the mother of the well-known Obey family. Mrs. Trunick, in her girlhood days, took an ax and cleared five acres of timber-land, and received as pay for this work two tow-linen aprons. This was near Robinson’s run, where her father took up some land, and continued to reside until his death, as did also Mrs. Trunick. The latter’s account of men and manners in those early days of deprivation and self-denial were very interesting. One of her daughters, Jane, married a gentleman named Reese, and by this union a large number of children were born, two of whom, James and Reuben, married two sisters, daughters of Mrs. John Obey, and reside at this date upon the old homestead of the Obey family, and are noted as men of force, energy and enterprise.

The descendants of these Trunicks are generous and hospitable, and as a family their lives have been evenly balanced and useful in the community, exceptionally free from criminality and viciousness, not one of them having ever been incarcerated for crime, or rendered himself a nuisance to the community. In the language of scripture, the descendants of the Trunick family rise up and call their grandmother and mother blessed —a tribute alike to her sterling integrity, moral worth, common sense and kindness of heart.