My Genealogy Hound

JACOB M. WARD, who has been located for several years upon his present place in South Middleton township, has followed farming all his active life. He comes of a family which has been long identified with Cumberland county, his great-grandfather, William van Buren Ward, having lived and died in the county. He reached the great age of ninety-six years.

Jacob Ward, the grandfather of Jacob M., learned and followed the trade of shoemaker. He spent all his life in Silver Spring and Middlesex township, this county. He married Mary Feister, and to their union were born one son and one daughter, the latter dying in childhood. They were Lutherans in religious faith.

John Ward, son of Jacob and father of Jacob M., was born April 11, 1827, and like his father and grandfather passed his life in Cumberland county. In young manhood and middle life he was engaged as a carpenter, but his latter years were spent at farming, and his death occurred in August, 1902, in Carlisle, where he was then living retired. He married Jane Ann Garman, who was born in March, 1826, and died in the fall of 1878. Mr. and Mrs. Ward clung to the faith of the Lutheran church. They had two children, Jacob M. and Mary E., the latter dying at the age of twenty-three years.

Jacob M. Ward was born June 10, 1852, in Middlesex township, this county, near Sterrett’s Gap. He received excellent educational opportunities, and graduated from the Plainfield high school. Farming has been his occupation throughout his active years, and about 1898 he settled at his present home in South Middleton township, where he is successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits.

On Nov. 8, 1874, Mr. Ward married Miss Catherine Young, daughter of Joshua and Catherine (Hose) Young, prosperous and respected residents of York county, and to this union have been born nine children, namely: John A., a teacher in the Boiling Springs high school, who married Emma Nailor; Ida Florence, now the wife of William Brenneman; Minnie Catherine, wife of Harry Swarner; William A., a bookkeeper in Carlisle; Charles H., a teacher, who married Alda Hartman; Joseph B., attending high school at Boiling Springs; and Nannie A., George B. and Wilbur H., still at home. The family holds an enviable position among the most respected residents of their section of the county.