Bio: John GEIST, Lancaster County, PA

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Suzanne Noble
noblesueglenn@worldnet.att.net


USGENWEB NOTICE:Printing this file by non-commercial individuals
                and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices
                and submitter information is included. Any other use,
                including copying files to other sites requires
                permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to
                any other sites. We encourage links to the state and
                county table of contents.
_________________________________________________________________

Source: Biographical Annals of Lancaster County Containing Biographical and 
Genealogical Sketches of Prominent and Representatives Citizens and Many of the Early 
Settlers. 

Volume I (Pages 1193-1524) WITH NEW INDEX 
SOUTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA GENEALOGICAL SERVICES 
Laughlintown, Pennsylvania 
1987 
PAGE 487 
Lancaster County Historical Society 
June 1997 

JOHN GEIST. Among the retired farmers of Lancaster county John Geist takes a leading 
position, being a man of large means and much public spirit. Mr. Geist was born in West 
Lampeter township Sept. 4, 1829, and he was a son of John and Eliza ( Powell) Geist, 
natives, respectively, of Strasburg and East Lampeter townships. By trade the elder 
John Geist was a wagon maker, which business he carried on in connection with his 
farming operations. Some time prior to his death he gave up active work. Father Geist 
was born July 29, 1804, and died May 21, 1866. His first wife was born March 19, 1809, 
and died March 9, 1844, both being buried in Mellinger's cemetery. These worthy people 
had been devoted members of the Reformed Mennonite Church. 

The children of these parents were: Anna, who died young; Daniel, who died in Ohio and 
was twice married, the first time to Mary Kreider; John; Mary J., Amos, Barbara, 
Elizabeth, and Emma, who all died young; and Susanna R., who married Henry Rudy. The 
second marriage of Mr. Geist was to Susanna Burkholder, and to this union one daughter 
was born, Martha, who married Rev. Abraham Kurtz and died in 1898. The paternal 
grandparents of John Geist were Philip and Barbara Geist, natives of Baden, Germany, 
the former of whom came to America at the age of eighteen in order to avoid service in 
the German army. Philip Geist was a son of George Geist, a native of Wittenburg, 
Germany, who came to America in 1763, locating in Strasburg, Lancaster county. where 
his two brothers, Simon and Leonard, already resided. 

John Geist received a good common school education and made his home with his parents 
until he was about twenty-five years old, although at the age of seventeen he began to 
learn the carpenter trade, which kept him from home a part of the time. Later he 
engaged in farming in East Lampeter township, moving to his present farm in Upper 
Leacock township, six miles east of Lancaster, in 1865, where he remained actively 
engaged in general farming until July 14, 1896; then he removed to his present 
residence on the same farm, while his son took the old home and relieved his father of 
the work. This is one of the fine farms in this part of Lancaster county, comprising 
100 acres of well improved, finely cultivated and productive land. 

John Geist was married Nov. 9, 1854, in Lancaster, to Miss Charlotte Harnish, and the 
children of this union were: Martin, who died at the age of fourteen years; Lizzie Ann, 
who married Kinder Bender, of Leacock township, and has a family of eight children; 
Mary J., who married O. S. Eckert, a farmer of West Earl township, and has four 
children; Ida A., a young lady, at home; Willis, the farmer on the old homestead, who 
married Laura Stoner, has two children, and is one of the school directors; Lotta, a 
young girl at home; Morten, Emma, and John, who died in infancy. 

Mrs. Charlotte Harnish Geist was born in East Lampeter township Oct. 4,1832, and was a 
daughter of Martin and Anna ( Weidler) Harnish, the former a farmer of West Lampeter 
township, where he died in 1840, at the age of thirty-eight years, and the latter a 
native of Leacock township. The mother survived until she was eighty-two years old, 
dying in 1876, and she was buried in the private burying grounds on the old farm. Both 
parents of Mrs. Geist were worthy Christian people, devout members of the Reformed 
Mennonite Church. There children were: Benjamin W., who operated a foundry and died in 
1890; Elizabeth, who was the wife of Edwin Betzer and died in 1860; Charlotte, the wife 
of Mr. Geist; and Samuel, a moulder of Lancaster. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. 
Geist was Martin Harnish, a farmer and distiller who became a resident of Ohio, but 
died while visiting in Lancaster county. 

Mr. Geist has been identified with a number of leading business interests of Lancaster 
county and for ten years has been a director in the Farmer's National Bank of 
Lancaster. In politics he is a Republican, and socially he is respected and esteemed by 
all who know him.