Reunion and Historical Sketch of the Conard Family
The family reunion briefly mentioned in last week's News, as having taken place at the residence of our townsman Benj. Conard on Monday the 14th inst. Was followed by a general picnic of all the Conard family, residing or visiting at this time in the vicinity. The picnic was held in Robert Edward's grove near New Lexington on Thursday the 17th and was attended by ninety-eight (98) of the lineal descendants of Cornelius Conard (father of said Benj. Conard) including their husbands and wives down as far as the fourth generation, which was represented only by the little son of J. Wesley Chaney, of this place.
Besides the 98 regular descendant, there were present several other Conard cousins and those closely connected by marriage with the family amounting in all to 150 persons all so closely connected, as to be one family.
About noon all assembled around the well-filled table and did ample justice to the good things spread before them. After dinner, Benj. Conard, by request, read a brief history or genealogical sketch of the Conard family which we give below. After which all seemed to enjoy themselves up to the highest point of human enjoyment until about 5 o'clock p.m. when all dispersed to their respective homes or stopping places feeling that they had enjoyed a treat such as comes but once in a lifetime.
Sept. 14 - 1874 Highland County - Sept 11 1874
As this is an occasion, that it is hoped will be long remembered by those present, it has been suggested to me that I prepare something to be read before you. Giving a short sketch of the design and nature of this meeting and how such a meeting came to be gotten up I have undertaken the task, hoping that my humble efforts may thus be preserved by some of the rising generation as a relic of interest to unborn generations of this particular branch of the Conard family.
This meeting or picnic came about in this way, as my four sons with their wives and families are settled in four different States of the Union namely, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa and Pennsylvania.
I expressed a desire to each of them that they should all meet together once more with their parents and sisters around the family board and named the 14th of the present month as the day, that being my 64th birthday. To this request they have all responded, prompted by the strong ties of family affection and sacrificed money and time and defied distance and all the other obstacles and we have through the blessings of Providence and their energy all sat together united as one family. Not only my own children but their children, their husbands and wives.
Our feelings on this occasion it is useless for me to attempt to describe on paper, as the occasion was one that to be appreciated must be participated in. The fact of the moral certainty that this is the last time that we will all meet together on earth, gives interest to the occasion not to be described.
May we all meet in Heaven!
The whole number met together on that occasion consisting of my eight children, their husbands, wives and children, with my sister, her husband and sister-in-law, was 37.
The fact of the anticipated visit of my four sons, suggested to some of their cousins here (my sister's children) the idea of a general picnic meeting of all the descendants of my father settled in or visiting in this neighborhood. So to them must be given the credit of whatever pleasure we may have here.
I will now proceed to give some account of the early history of the family. I have since this meeting was in contemplation tried to collect what information I could of an early history and have been furnished with one document prepared many years ago by Jesse Conard of West Chester Pennsylvania.
By this it appears that we are the descendants of one Tunis Kunder alias Dennis Cunrad who arrived from Germany or Holland with the first company of religious settlers at Germantown (or New Philadelphia). At his stone house in Germantown, being probably among the largest, for the time the "Society of Friends" held their first meeting at that place in 1684. Mention of which and his friendly disposition is made in Praud's History of Pennsylvania.
The writer of the paper referred to does not think that he was then in membership with Friends. But the tradition that I have from my father is that he joined the Society in Holland and for that reason he, with many others, were obliged to leave their "Paderland" to avoid persecution for conscience.
At any rate it seems by the papey quaten that his name is among the large contributors toward the erection of the first Friends Meeting House in Germantown. It appears by the record of Philadelphia County that he was the owner of four different lots of land, on one of which was erected his house of stone in which the meeting was held.
This house has been (says the writer) torn down, and is now the property of Jacob Burns, having a newer and larger stone house on the ancient site and retaining in its structure on the North side a part of the original wall of the first house of Dennis Cunrad which is known from the newer wall by its being made of squared stone and in horizontal lines.
But I must not dwell too long on the particulars of this document, the facts of which were furnished to the writer by Y. G. Watson of Germantown the 19th of Feb. 1824.
I will not attempt to trace the regular line of descent from this Dennis Cunard down to the present generation nor have I any records of the family by which I can fix the time or by whom the spelling of the name was changed.
But I think I can remember my father telling me that his grandfather was the first to spell the name Conard. Others of the same family he said spelled it Conrad.
I will now begin with my grandfather whom I remember well: I think he was the son of a Cornelius Conard and I knew he had brothers by the name of Mathew, John and Joseph.
My Grandfather's name was Everard Conard and I think he was born in Germantown and married there to Margaret Cadwalader. He was a wagon maker by trade. It is certain that he moved to near Doylestown Bucks Co. Pa. where most of his children were born. Their names were as far as my knowledge goes, Isaac, Cornelius (my father), Abraham, Everard, Jesse, Sarah, Mary, and Margaret. All of whom married and all raised families except Isaac and Margaret.
My Grandfather moved from Bucks Co. to New London Chester Co. Pa about as near as I can tell, in the year 1784 and bought about 300 acres of land that was naturally of a poor quality of soil and had previously been exhausted by bad tillage.
Here he was one of the pioneers in improving the worn-out lands of that section, and among the first to haul lime-stone a distance (four miles) and burn it into lime for manure.
Subsequently he divided his land among his three sons, Viz Cornelius (my father), Everard and Jesse. His other two sons, Isaac and Abraham, settled on the limestone land of the Conestoga Valley in Lancaster Co.
The house were my grandfather first settled in Chester Co. about 1784 is still standing, although it was an old house then. It is still occupied by one of the family of Edwin Conard. It is built of hewn logs, but has been weather boarded and painted within my recollection, say some 50 years ago.
My father Cornelius Conard married Susanna Chalfant about the year 1790 or first of 1791, and settled on 50 acres of his father's land. This he farmed and improved and at the same time working some at the tailoring to which trade he had been apprenticed with a man by the name of Robins, a relative of the late Charles Robins of New Lexington in this Co. He had been apprenticed to a tailor on account of his being lamed by a wound from an axe when quite small.
After remaining on the 50 acres for a few years, building a house and making some other improvement, he sold his property and moved to the vicinity of historic Valley Forge, engaged first in tailoring and store keeping and \afterwards in farming and dairying for the Philadelphia market.
He moved to Valley Forge in 1797, where all but two of his children were born. There, while I was yet too young to comprehend the great loss, my mother died on the 23 of June 1817 and on about the first of April of the next year 1818, my father moved to the neighborhood of his father's and bought a worn-out farm, of 72 acres, taking with him six children namely, Lydia, Esther, Mary Elizabeth, Joseph, Amy, and Benjamin.
Amy died June 26 1821 aged 13 years. Our oldest brother, William and soon after married in that On this farm of 72 acres my continued to reside until his L O S T
He was a very industrious hard man and always did a full share of the labor notwithstanding his lameness. He pursued on this farm, what was then called the modern system of improvement by liming, etc., and before his death it was in good condition.
In 1837 my sister E[sther], Edwards, whose company we are blessed with today, moved to the neighborhood with her husband and four children, directed to this particular neighborhood by the fact that our aged uncle William Chalfant, our mother's brother, was then living where he first settled near Leesburg.
In the fall of 1845 my two brothers and myself came here on this place to see our sister and during that visit my brother Joseph agreed for the purchase of the farm of 200 acres on to which he moved with his family the next Spring Viz 1846.
Our brother William coming with him alone, he having no family but one married daughter.
In the Spring of 1850 I moved to the farm which you all know 2 miles west of here and the history and character of the family from that date you all know as well as I do and may, if you choose, write it out to suit yourselves.
Benj. Conard