| Notes |
- Moved to Schuylkill County, had seven children.
Oley Valley Ancestors - by Guy L. Bierman Rev. 6 Jan 2002
OH1328- George Yoder Jr. m. Elizabeth Reinart (12/16/1794-1/3/1888)
d. 2/1/1826 bur. Howerters Cem.
George Yoder and wf Elisabeth [Reiner]
Wilhelm Yoder-19 Dec 1812/7 Feb 1813-L christening
- Jacob Reiner and wf Elisabeth [Wagner] witnesses
George Yoder Jr and his brother Abraham were the first of the Yoder's to settle in Schuylkill county, locating in what is now Eldred township. where they secured large tracts of land and engaged in farming. Abraham also built a saw and grist mill, one of the first in the county, and this mill is still standing. George Yoder Jr married Elizabeth Reiner of Berks county, and they had six children- Mary, Sallie, Hattie, Elizabeth, William, and Charles-all now deceased.
NOTE: George Sr. of Berks County was a wealthy farmer and bought a farm for each of his children. George Jr and Abraham Yoder's gifted farms were located in Schuykill County where they settled with their families.
THE MAHANTONGO YODERS
By Don Yoder
The Pennsylvania Dutch area in Eastern Pennsylvania known as Mahantongo, renowned for its decorated furniture which now commands major attention in the world of antique collecting and museum curatorship, centers about the valley of the Mahantongo Creek. This historic stream with its Indian name meaning "where we had plenty of meat to eat," rises in the mountains of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and joins the Susquehanna River twenty-five miles west near the towns of Malta and Dalmatia. The Mahantongo culture area is much more extensive than the creek valley itself. It straddles Schuylkill, Northumberland, and Dauphin Counties, including several adjoining valleys, among them the Lykens or Hegins Valley to the South, and the Swabian Creek and Mahanoy Valleys to the North. The part of this area that is now included in Schuylkill County was in the first decade of the nineteenth century a huge township called Mahantongo Township. Until 1811, when Schuylkill County was set off, it was part of Berks County, and was later divided into Upper and Lower Mahantongo Townships, which in turn were divided into smaller subdivisions.
After 1800 the Mahantongo area in Schuylkill and Northumberland Counties became an important settlement point and distribution center for Yoder families. Some of these have stayed in the area to the present day, others moved further west, especially to Armstrong, Clarion, and Jefferson Counties in Western Pennsylvania, where dozens of Mahantongo families, including Yoder's settled before the Civil War. A second movement from Mahantongo took many Yoder families into the new industrial towns that were growing up in the anthracite coal region to the north - including Shamokin, Mt. Carmel, and other centers.
The Yoder's who settled in the Mahantongo area were all from the Oley Valley clan, hence were all related. The Mahantongo Yoder's were descendants of two brothers, George Jr, and Abraham Yoder. These were sons of Samuel Yoder, who was in turn the son of Hans Yoder, Jr., and grandson of the emigrant, Hans Yoder, Sr. (1672-1742).
George Yoder, Sr. (1752-1833) of Oley Valley, lived and died on the Samuel Yoder farm between Pleasantville and the Oley churches, on part of the original Yoder tract. There are lengthy deeds in the Berks County Courthouse at Reading going into the transfers of this land to Hans, Jr. and Samuel, and eventually to George Yoder. George's large stone house is still standing, as enlarged by his oldest son, William Yoder (1783-1858), who inherited the home farm. However, the older buildings, including a three-room stone cabin from the pre-revolutionary era that I photographed about forty years ago, have been torn down by the present owners.
After serving in the Revolution and establishing himself as a well-to-do farmer and township official in Oley Township, George Yoder, Sr., invested in lands in Upper Bern Township, Berks County, and in Mahantongo Township, north of the Blue Mountain in what is now Schuylkill County. I have several huge parchment deeds to the Mahantongo land that he bought for two of his sons, Abraham Yoder (1785-1868) and George Yoder, Jr. (1787-1827), both of whom moved to Mahantongo. George Yoder, Jr., my grandfather's grandfather, was a farmer and wheelwright, and died in Mahantongo, but his brother Abraham, after operating the Yoder Gristmill and Sawmill (still standing) for at least two decades, eventually moved back to Oley, settling in Pike Township on land he got from his father-in-law, Soloman Yerger. Abraham and his wife, Elizabeth Yerger, are buried at the St. Joseph's or Oley Hills Church. Abraham's great grandson, Guldin Yoder, whom I knew, was historian of that branch of the family, and I have copies of some of his family charts. His letters to me always began with the words, "Dear Kinsman," which I liked, and in one of them he made the statement, only too true, that our Yoder history is a "chic saw puzzle".
George Yoder, Sr., also provided farms for three of his daughters. Two of these, Elizabeth Yoder (1784-1852), wife of Samuel Moyer, and Esther Yoder, wife of Henry Schreckengast, got Mahantongo Valley farms. The third daughter, Mary Yoder, wife of Abraham Ritter, by codicil dated December 14, 1833, received a farm in Upper Bern Township, Berks County.
In addition to these George Yoder family members, other Yoder's, closely related--first cousins in fact--came from Oley to settle in Mahantongo at about the same time. These were the children of Peter Yoder (born 1763), brother of George, Sr. Peter is said to have married Catherine Trout and himself to have settled in Mahantongo Valley. (I have never located his grave; possibly he moved on further west.) At any rate his children--Solomon, Anthony, George, David, Jeremiah, Charles, and two daughters--appear in the following list of Yoder baptisms and baptismal sponsors.
The oldest church in the Mahantongo Valley, at least in the upper end where the Yoder's settled, was the St. Jacob's or Howerters Lutheran and Reformed Union Church. Until 1943, when the second church building burned and the union arrangement broke up with the two congregations erecting separate churches elsewhere, the church was located at Line Mountain, in Upper Mahanoy Township, Northumberland County, immediately across the Schuylkill County border. The huge cemetery, its oldest stone bearing the date 1802, marks the site of the church, and contains many early Yoder graves with fine carved tombstones bearing Pennsylvania Dutch designs.
All the old Mahantongo families, including the Yoder's, originally belonged to this church, which was operated jointly by the Lutherans and the Reformed. There were Yoder's in both wings of the church, although the majority of them appear to have been Lutheran. In 1984 the Northumberland County Historical Society, in its Proceedings, Volume XXIX, published my translation of the records of this church, 1803-1869, with a detailed history of the congregation, its people, pastors, and traditions. It is from this record that I offer the readers of the Yoder Newsletter the following Yoder baptisms. The names are spelled exactly as they were in the original German record book. Hence do not be disturbed when "Georg" has no final "e" and that "Yoder' was spelled seven different ways in addition to our present spelling. These forms include JODER, JODDER, JOTTER, YOTTER, JOTER, JOTHER, AND JORDER. Several of these, including the last one, reflect the way in which "Yoder" was pronounced in Pennsylvania Dutch dialect.
Will readers please note that we need information on many of these persons, especially those from the Peter Yoder line--where they lived, whom they married, names of their children, etc., and where they died and are buried. A Mahantongo cousin of mine, Avice Hepler Morgan, who is also a descendant of the Yoder's, will be joining me in preparing a history and genealogy of the Oley and Mahantongo Yoder's. This project should develop into a book that may match Cousin Avice's Hepler Book of a thousand pages that she published in 1986, and her even larger Morgan Book of 1989. It is our hope, therefore, that with the help of the Yoder Newsletter we will be able at last to assemble all the pieces of the Oley-Mahantongo Yoder "chic saw puzzle".
Will Yoder's descended from these Yoder families, Oley or Mahantongo or both, please get in touch either with AVICE HEPLER MORGAN, Box 164, Pitman PA 17964, or myself, DON YODER, Box 515, Devon PA 19333
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1787 - 1826 (38 years)