Surname Saturday: GRUNDEN [Part 1]

Samuel Grunden was born 6 Mar 1777 in Pennsylvania and died 20 Jan 1852 in Mercer Co., Ohio.

We know very little about Samuel's parents but the story from Walter, a great grandson of Samuel, that he told in 1947 was that his (Walter's) father, John Snyder Grunden, said they always told him the family lived in Pennsylvania and their cabin burned and the father and mother ran away and left three children and the neighbors raised the children. Walter's brother Samuel later told a similar story: 

"So far as I remember I was told of a Grunden's cabin burning years and years ago, and there were three children which the parents put in another cabin and they (the parents) disappeared and the neighbors raised the children and they never did hear from the parents. Don't know if they were killed by Indians or not. One of these children was Grandfather's father. One of the children was a girl. Her name was Hannah and I think she married a Long. This must have happened in Pennsylvania".  

[The above snippets of the Grunden family story were passed on to me by my mother's 4th cousin and one of my dearest family genealogy cohorts, Dorothy Hildreth of Laramie, Wyoming (now deceased).]

We know that Samuel's father was Thomas but do not know anything about Thomas's wife. On page 470 of the "History of Van Wert & Mercer counties, Ohio" by R. Sutton & Co., 1882, it says that Thomas was in the Revolutionary War but no record has been found. An excerpt from the book "William Adams, 1594-1661, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and some of his descendants: A history of the ancestral Adams lineage of Madeline (Adams) Whitehead ... Wilson, Mapes, Cochran, Whitehead, and Eaton" by Kenneth L. Bosworth 1996 states that this Grunden family had emigrated from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. Other than this book, I do not yet have documentation on that. We also know from research that the little girl in the story, Hannah, did indeed marry a Long (Armel Long), so that part of the story certainly pans out.

In Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania, Samuel married Margaret Anderson, of Scot-Irish ancestry. Samuel was in the War of 1812. Sources listed as: Bible of Samuel Grunden; Grave Registrations War of 1812."

Samuel and Margaret had 9 known children: Mary, James David, Rebecca, Samuel A., Margaret, Thomas, Joseph (my ancestor), Hannah, and Anderson.

Joseph Grunden married Martha Dungan, daughter of John and Sarah Dungan of Butler Co., Ohio and Joseph and Martha's daughter Mary Louisa was my great, great grandmother and this is where my Grunden line daughter's out. Louisa married my great, great grandfather, John A. Newby.

Click here to see Part 2


SHARE