Josh The Lighthouse Guy
Major
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2012
- Location
- Jupiter, FL
Jacob Singleton Widmeyer (1832-1893) was a farmer in Morgan County (home to Bath / Berkeley Springs). The family - clearly of German ancestry based on the name - had been in that area since colonial times. 1861 he had a wife and three young sons, with a daughter on the way. He would eventually end up with 8 children.
There is evidence of him being enrolled in the 89th Virginia Militia Regiment, Company H - a Virginia state army unit. In 1863, he registered for the Union Army draft, still in Morgan County. Around the end of the war he moved, permanently, across the Potomac River to Hancock, Maryland. None of his children seem to have ever lived in West Virginia again; some ended up in Pennsylvania. One did get married in Berkeley Springs, but it was an elopement. A few of his sons ended up in Florida, including Jupiter in the 1890s, which is how I know of them.
Jacob's parents and most of his younger siblings stayed in Morgan County. His brother, George Washington Widmeyer (1836-1912) registered for the 1863 draft with his brother, and likewise moved across the Potomac. If there was any doubt about where Jacob and George's sympathies were: when George had a son born near the end of the war, he named the boy Ulysses Grant Widmeyer.
There is evidence of him being enrolled in the 89th Virginia Militia Regiment, Company H - a Virginia state army unit. In 1863, he registered for the Union Army draft, still in Morgan County. Around the end of the war he moved, permanently, across the Potomac River to Hancock, Maryland. None of his children seem to have ever lived in West Virginia again; some ended up in Pennsylvania. One did get married in Berkeley Springs, but it was an elopement. A few of his sons ended up in Florida, including Jupiter in the 1890s, which is how I know of them.
Jacob's parents and most of his younger siblings stayed in Morgan County. His brother, George Washington Widmeyer (1836-1912) registered for the 1863 draft with his brother, and likewise moved across the Potomac. If there was any doubt about where Jacob and George's sympathies were: when George had a son born near the end of the war, he named the boy Ulysses Grant Widmeyer.
Bringing the