Early Generations of the Yost Family in Berkeley/Morgan Counties By Stephen Stec (c) 2007 (free use with attribution) William Yost is known to have come from Pennsylvania to the Sleepy Creek area in what is today Morgan County WV. He purchased land in 1793 on the West bank of Sleepy Creek, paying 200 pounds in Pennsylvania currency (Berkeley County deeds - the area was in Berkeley County VA/WV prior to the formation of Morgan County in 1820). He was living with his family somewhere in Pennsylvania in 1769, as shown by the 1850 census record of his son John which states that John was born in Pennsylvania that year. Prior to 1777 he appears to have migrated to Virginia, as the 1850 census record for his son Peter Elijah states that P.E. was born in Virginia in that year. It is not clear where in Virginia William Yost was living between 1777 and 1793. Early Berkeley County records should be consulted to determine when he moved into the area around Sleepy Creek. He may have been a tenant, or he may have lived on lands owned by family members or in-laws. The 200 pounds of Pennsylvania currency with which he purchased land in 1793 (at this time he was in middle age) may indicate that he sold lands he owned there or that he came into an inheritance. If so there may be land records or wills in Pennsylvania to shed light on this. As many Germans migrated in stages via Western Maryland those records should also be searched. No Pennsylvania or Maryland records conclusively linked to William have been found so far. There is no baptism record known, nor is there a marriage record. Secondary sources state that William was born about 1744 and married about 1766. Both John and Peter Elijah (among other children) are mentioned in the will of William "Youst," dated 8 November 1822, and probated in Morgan County on 5 January 1824 (I will use the Yost spelling except when referring to specific records). William's wife Elizabeth is also mentioned in his will. Some family researchers identified Elizabeth as a Clover. The Clover family was of German descent and migrated through Shepherdstown in about 1764, later on to Berkeley Springs. The name sometimes appears in records as Clauver. It is possibly an anglicization of Klopfer or Klawer. Both these names can be found on ships' manifests. The matriarch of the Ambrose clan of Morgan County was Rosannah Clauver, born about 1773, who married Matthias Ambrose in 1791 (and whose daughter Susan married John Yost, Jr.). While it would be necessary to look further, if Elizabeth was a Clover, the Ambroses and Clauvers (and possibly the Yosts) would have been together already in Pennsylvania. William left a substantial estate at his death. The children of William Yost and Elizabeth ______ were: 1. Mary. No further record. 2. John, born ca 1769, Pennsylvania. Married ca 1797 Elizabeth [Clover?] [Catlett?] (see below). Died between October 1855 and 1856, Morgan County VA. See below. 3. Catherine. No further record. 4. Peter Elijah, born ca 1777, Virginia. Married 3 June 1799 Catherine Elizabeth Bohrer. Died 24 September 1856 or 1857. Buried at Ambrose Chapel. They had five known children. 5. William. No further record of him, but he had a son William, born about 1811, who married Susan ______, and was found with his family in the 1850 Morgan County census. His wife died June 1880 in Morgan County. 6. Elizabeth. No further record. 7. Charles (?). While not mentioned in his father's will, some researchers state that William had another son, Charles. John Yost, son of William, was born in Pennsylvania about 1769. His wife Elizabeth was born about 1773 in Virginia. John must have come to Virginia as a small boy, based on the abovementioned census records. In 1801 he bought more than 66 acres of land from a Catlett, at Lick Run in the drains of Sleepy Creek, along Michael Michael Michael's line. In the 1810 census he can be found next to John Catlett, near to several families associated with Ambrose Chapel. They include Shockey, Havermeil (later Hovermill), and Matthias Riser, the preacher. John bought another 19 acres in the drains of Sleepy Creek in 1817. Based on the 1801 land purchase, it would be worth investigating the possibility that John Yost's wife was Elizabeth Catlett. However, a Clover family is found living next to John and Elizabeth in the 1850 census, so we might also consider that the secondary sources mixed up the generations, and that Elizabeth, wife of John, was the true Clover. The will of John "Youst" is found in Will Book 2 in Morgan County, dated 4 October 1855, and probated January term, 1856. In his will he names several children and also leaves a legacy to "daughter Nancy Merchant's children, she being dead." An 1870 court case related to the settlement of the estate sheds further light on subsequent events (see below). The children of John Yost and Elizabeth [Clover?] [Catlett?] were: 1. Peter, born c 1794 in Berkeley (later Morgan) County. He married Elizabeth Caw, daughter of Joseph Caw and Evy _____. He died 18 March 1872 in Berkeley Springs. Peter and Elizabeth had seven children. 2. William. According to the 1870 court case concerning his father's estate, he left for Muskingam County OH about 1820 and shortly after married Mary Lewis. They had three children before William died around 1840 in Coshocton, Muskingam Co OH. Mary remarried to George Haines. Of the children of William Yost and Mary Lewis, Nancy married William Robinson, Mary married Charles S. McCleary and was living in Madison Co Iowa, and William Jr. had died and left a son in California. 3. Nancy, born about 1800, probably in Berkeley (Morgan). She married Samuel Merchant about 1822. She died about 1835. Nancy and Samuel had five children. Samuel Merchant was apparently a close friend of the firstborn, Peter. Several Morgan County records refer to Samuel Merchant and Peter Yost together, sometimes involving one kind of trouble or another that they had gotten into. Samuel also had an illegitimate child by Nancy's younger sister, Catherine, following the death of Nancy. 4. John, Jr. He married Susan Ambrose on 1 June 1825 in Morgan County. In an 1843 court case, Ambrose v. Ambrose, concerning the estate of Matthias Ambrose, Susan's father, John and Susan were named as not inhabitants of the state of Virginia. While it is not known where they went, John was still alive in 1870 at the time of the court case concerning his father's estate. 5. Christian, no further record. 6. Catherine Ann, born ca 1810, Berkeley (Morgan) Co. As mentioned above, she had an illegitimate son, Elisha, with Samuel Merchant in 1838. Elisha was living with his grandparents in the 1850 census. On 15 March 1840 in Morgan County, she married Nicholas Henry, from another prominent German Morgan County family with roots in Lancaster PA. Two Henry boys married daughters of Samuel Merchant and Nancy Yost. Nicholas, however, appears not to have been very well respected, at least by his father-in-law. In John Yost's will he specifically mentions that the legacy to Catherine is her own, separate and apart from her husband. He did not do this in the case of his other married daughter. Catherine and Nicholas had five children. 7. Levi (Lewis), born ca 1812 in Virginia. He married 24 August 1832 in Morgan County to Martha Porter. Samuel Merchant was the bonsdman. Both Levi and Martha were deceased by the time of the 1870 court case. They had seven children. 8. Mary (Polly), married Peter Hume. Died without issue before April 1870. The 1870 case mentioned is Peter Yost et al. v. Levi Yost and Isaiah Buck, Adm'rs., and concerns the estate of John Yost. The case seems to have dealt with the fact that the administrators of the estate had reported that William Yost, son of John, had died without heirs. The heirs of William apparently got wind of this and sued. The commissioner, relying on affidavits, including one of 87-year-old David Sherrard, a Methodist preacher who had lived within four miles of John Yost before moving to Ohio in 1810, established that William Yost, although dead, had left the heirs above mentioned. Among the plaintiffs were John, Mary, Elizabeth and Lewis Merchant (heirs of Nancy Yost Merchant). The settlement of the case suggests that Nancy Yost, the daughter of John, married a Merchant and her heirs were Marie Merchant, Samuel Boxley [Baxley] and Mary his wife, Robert Aulabaugh [husband of Elizabeth Merchant] and John Merchant. This case was summarized by Fred Newbraugh and I took the information from his notes. The reference on his notes was XXXV, 533, which could be a reference to a file number or a volume and page of court minutes. I have tried to find this record in Morgan County but to no avail. Courthouse officials informed me that a lot of court records have been transferred to the Library of WVU in Morgantown, but this has not been confirmed either. The website of the West Virginia Archives shows that some Morgan County records are available there on microfilm, including Chancery Orders from this period. According to Fred's notes, he extracted all the genealogical information, but the court case includes lots of information on the Yost family. It would be great to find the original court records. The Yosts and the Merchants were part of an interesting and dynamic set of characters and families living in a quiet, backwoods part of Old Berkeley County, not far from the hustle and bustle of Bath, or Berkeley Springs as it is known today. For most of its history, Berkeley Springs was a place where you could meet the rich, the powerful and the adventurous, all attracted by the natural springs. Earnest and faithful Germans spread through the backwoods, living well from all that can be seen today. Somehow, somewhere, a branch of an old Quaker family, the Merchants, came in contact with these folks, and for the most part adopted their ways. Well before Melissa Belle Merchant came over the dirt road from Rock Gap through Shanghai, the Merchants of Morgan County identified themselves with their neighbors, practicing the religion of the Brethren, being buried in the exclusively German Ambrose Chapel ground. Stephen Stec Head of Environmental Law Programme and Senior Legal Specialist Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe Ady Endre ut 9-11 2000 Szentendre HUNGARY tel: (36 26) 504 000 fax: (36 26) 311 294 email: sstec@rec.org www.rec.org