BIO: JOHN H. WOODBURN, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Joe Patterson OCRed by Judy Banja Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/ _____________________________________________________________ >From Biographical Annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905, pages 666-669 _____________________________________________________________ NOTE: Use this web address to access other bios: http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/zeamer/ JOHN H. WOODBURN. On March 27, 1772, James Woodburn, of Colerain township, Lancaster county, bought from Timothy Hosfield, of Bethlehem, Northampton county, 280 acres of land. The land is described in the deed as adjoining lands of Robert Dunning in Pennsboro township, Cumberland county. This is the first appearance of the Woodburn name upon the records of Cumberland county. The purchaser soon afterward removed to this property for the tax list of West Pennsboro the next year shows him taxed with this land and also with personal property. James Woodburn continues taxed with practically the same amount of land from that time down to 1786, when he disappears. The next year a John Woodburn, who for several years had been listed as "freeman" in West Pennsboro, is taxed with the same amount of land that James Woodburn had been taxed with, and continues taxed with it for some years to come. The fact that the property which belonged for so many years to James Woodburn descended to John Woodburn is a pretty safe indication that John was the son of James, and his natural and legal heir. This John Woodburn lived in the locality known as "The Richlands," in the northern CUMBERLAND COUNTY. 667 part of what is now Dickinson township. According to tradition the family came from Ireland, but whether before or after John was born cannot now be determined. The family seem to have first settled in Lancaster county. James, the father, probably died about the year 1787, leaving two sons, John and Samuel. He may also have had other children, but whether he did and who they were is not definitely known. Samuel never married, and for a number of years the two brothers lived together and jointly farmed the lands which they inherited from their father. Afterward they divided the estate, and each farmed his own portion. They belonged to what was long known as the "Old Seceder" Church, which stood near the "Stone House", in Dickinson township, and it is probable that the remains of their parents are buried in the graveyard of that Church. Samuel died in November, 1834, in his sixty-ninth year; and John died Jan. 11, 1846, at the great age of ninety-two years. Their remains rest in the same lot in the graveyard of the United Presbyterian Church at Newville. This John Woodburn was the grandfather of John H. Woodburn, the subject of this biographical sketch. He married Mary Skiles, who died Jan. 16, 1836, at the age of seventy-two years, and is buried by the side of her husband in the graveyard at Newville. John Woodburn and Mary Skiles, his wife, had the following children: James, born July 1, 1788; Jane, born Nov. 29, 1790; Samuel, born March 27, 1791; Skiles; Rebecca, born Aug. 11, 1802; Thomas Smith; Emily. James Woodburn, the eldest son, through association with the militia, acquired the title of "Colonel", and was long familiarly known as "Colonel Woodburn." On Jan. 20, 1814, he married Eliza Jacobs, and formany years lived on a farm on the north side of the Conedoguinet Creek, near what is known as Jacobs' Bridge. He had three daughters, one of whom, Jane, married James Paxton Woods. The other two were twins, Mary and Elizabeth, of whom Mary married Levi Trego, and Elizabeth married Jacob Trego. Levi and Jacob Trego were brothers. Jane Woodburn, the eldest daughter of John and Mary (Skiles) Woodburn, married Alexander Davidson, who died Oct. 19, 1865. She died Aug. 1, 1879, and both are buried in the cemetery of the Big Spring Church at Newville. Samuel Woodburn, the second son, while yet a boy, cut his knee and was so badly lamed that he had to walk with crutches during the rest of his life. He was a large, heavy man, and notwithstanding his lameness was quite agile. He took much interest in public affairs, and in 1833 Governor Wolf appointed him Register of Wills. In 1851 he was elected Associate Judge, and in 1856 re-elected. For a long time he lived on the property on the York Road in South Middleton township known as the Weakley farm. On Jan. 7, 1820, Samuel Woodburn married Elizabeth, daughter of James Weakley, by whom he had two children, a daughter who married a McColloch; and another, Mary S., who married Joseph McKee. His first wife dying he married (second) Jane Brown, by whom he had two children, Thomas, who died young, and Jane, who married Captain Thomas McGregor, of the United States army. Judge Woodburn died Oct. 7, 1860, and is buried in the Old Grave Yard at Carlisle. Rebecca married David Sterett. Emily married Matthew Davidson. Thomas Smith Woodburn, the youngest son of John and Mary (Skiles) Woodburn, was born April 20, 1807, on the Woodburn 668 CUMBERLAND COUNTY. homestead in "The Richlands." He married Margaret Craighead, daughter of Thomas and Rebecca (Weakley) Craighead, a lineal descendant of the Rev. Thomas Craighead, who was the first pastor of the Presbyterian congregation west of the Susquehanna river in the Cumberland Valley. Her great-grandfather, John Craighead, in 1742, purchased a large tract of land upon the Yellow Breeches creek, four miles south of where Carlisle now is, upon which the family have lived through five successive generations. After his marriage Thomas S. Woodburn engaged at farming on the Woodburn farm in "The Richlands," where he continued to reside until his death. He died Oct. 11, 1839, while yet a young man, and his remains are buried in the graveyard of the United Presbyterian Church at Newville. Thomas Smith and Margaret (Craighead) Woodburn had children as follows: John H.; Thomas Craighead, born Aug. 16, 1835; James Skiles, born April 9, 1837; Rebecca, born Jan. 7, 1839. After the death of Thomas S. Woodburn his widow married Major Joseph Trego, Jan. 11, 1844, and by him had four children. She died March 30, 1880, and is buried in Ashland Cemetery at Carlisle. Thomas C. Woodburn, the second son of Thomas S. and Margaret (Craighead) Woodburn, became a lawyer and practiced at Baltimore, where he died. He left one daughter, who is now the wife of Joseph Miller, an engineer on the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, living at Harrisburg. James Skiles Woodburn, the third son, was a member of Company F, 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and served three years in the late Civil war, nineteen months of which time he was a prisoner at Richmond and Andersonville. Rebecca Woodburn, the only daughter, married Archibald Thompson, who settled at Amador City, California, where she died in 1902. John H. Woodburn, the eldest child of the family, was born on the Woodburn ancestral home in "The Richlands," July 22, 1832, and lived there until he was almost eight years of age. Soon after his father died he went to the home of his aunts, the Misses Jane, Mary and Rachel Craighead, and there grew to manhood. He was educated in the country district school, and in the Academy at Newville, and later in the Burns Academy, which for some years existed where now is Elliottson Station. When about twenty years of age he began farming on the farm on which he still resides. It then belonged to his aunts, but afterward he bought 116 acres of it, erected new buildings upon it, planted trees and added other improvements which have made it a first-class modern farm, and also a very comfortable and beautiful home. Here he has contentedly lived since 1860, devoting himself to his family and quietly discharging the duties of a good citizen. On March 22, 1860, Mr. Woodburn was married to Agnes L. Weakley, by the Rev. W. W. Eel, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle. Agnes L. Weakley was a daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah (Bell) Weakley, and a lineal descendant of a James Weakley who settled upon the Yellow Breeches creek, in the territory now included in Dickinson township as early as 1724. To John H. and Agnes (Weakley) Woodburn came one child, Sallie Weakley, born June 5, 1861, who has always lived in the home of her parents. On Jan. 19, 1888, Sallie W. Woodburn was married to George Edmund Searight, the Rev. Dr. Norcross, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church CUMBERLAND COUNTY. 669 of Carlisle, performing the ceremony. George E. Searight is a son of the late Andrew K. and Amanda A. (Graham) Searight, and was born in South Middleton township, Sept. 25, 1861. He is a descendant of a Gilbert Searight, who, prior to the war of the Revolution, came from the North of Ireland and settled four miles west of Carlisle. George E. and Sallie (Woodburn) Searight have the following children: Agnes Weakley, born May 31, 1890; John H. Woodburn, born Dec. 29, 1893. Mrs. Agnes Woodburn died Aug. 26, 1903, and her remains were laid to rest in Ashland Cemetery at Carlisle. During the following year, on June 9, 1904, George E. Searight died after a brief illness, and his remains were interred in Ashland cemetery. Since then the two grandchildren, and their mother, comprise all of the little family that are the care and pride of Mr. Woodburn's declining years.