The Spurgeons of Bear Fork

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Family histories used to be handed down from generation to generation predominantly through oral storytelling. When family biographies were submitted to the Historical Society for their 1979 book History of Doddridge County, people did not yet have the luxury of the internet and online research. So a good portion of the submissions were based on word-of-mouth and family tradition. But with the advent of the internet, we now have access to primary sources that connect oral tradition with key documentation. Sometimes what we find does not always align exactly with family lore. Such was the case with the Spurgeons of Bear Fork. 

 

The easiest way to reach Bear Fork is to travel south on Rt.18 toward Gilmer County. Once you cross the county line, Bear Fork is 1.8 miles into Gilmer County. Turn right onto Bear Fork and head northeast. Exactly one mile in, bear right at the fork. As you continue north you’ll climb a ridge where you can look over the hill to your left and view the deep and open valley below. You’ll see cattle occupying the meadows and Bear Run meandering through the valley. 

 

After you turn to ascend the hill, you’ll continue on Bear Fork and travel another 1.3 miles over the hill and down into the valley. Here you’ll come to another fork in the road, where you’ll see the Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren, also known as the Dunkard Church, established in 1899. If you turn left at the church on Old Henry Road, you’ll shortly ascend another hill to the ridge that divides Doddridge and Gilmer counties. 

 

On a flat above the road is the Spurgeon Cemetery, owned and maintained by the Pleasant Valley Church. Geographically, the Spurgeon Cemetery lies about evenly in both Doddridge and Gilmer counties. It is located on land that belonged to George Spurgeon, who I’m pretty sure was the first burial there in 1884. In 1908 George Spurgeon’s daughter-in-law, Laura Sarah Czigans Spurgeon, donated the land for the cemetery to the church. Accordingly, the Spurgeon Cemetery is sometimes thought of as the Pleasant Valley Church Cemetery.

 

If you continue straight at the Dunkard Church, instead of turning onto Old Henry Road, you will shortly see a very large old two-story white house on the site of the original farm belonging to Jonathan Spurgeon, the patriarch of all Spurgeons in Doddridge County. The road heads north until it intersects Grove-Summers Road just west of Grove Baptist Church.

 

Jonathan Spurgeon (1787 - ca 1856)

What first caught my attention in the Spurgeon entry in the History of Doddridge County was the sentence “Jonithan (John) a frontiersman, was born on Bear Fork, Doddridge County.” Since Jonathan was born in 1787 and appeared in all Census records up until 1840 in Preston County, I doubted he could have been born on Bear Fork. His birth year, 1787, predates the formation of Doddridge, Gilmer and Lewis counties, so I did a thorough search of Harrison County deeds and minute books, but was unable to find any mention of Jonathan Spurgeon prior to 1843. 

 

In 1807 Jonathan Spurgeon married  Ruth Jeffreys in present-day Preston County. They had children James (b 1808), Elizabeth (b. 1810) and John (b. 1813). Ruth died in 1813, and in 1817 Jonathan married Elizabeth Catharine Schmell. Jonathan and Catharine had at least the following children: Philip (b. 1817), Jesse (b. 1819), George (b. 1822), Mary Ann (b.1824), Jeremiah (b. 1825), Catharine (b. 1826) and Rachel (b. 1831). All of Jonathan Spurgeon’s children were born in Preston County and resided there until the 1840s. 

 

The first official document mentioning the name Spurgeon in present-day Doddridge County was in 1843 when Jonathan Spurgeon purchased 300 acres “at the head of Middle fork of Hughes River.” Then in 1845 Jonathan Spurgeon sold that same 300 acres to Jane Vanhorn, widow of William Vanhorn. In the description of the land, it states that the boundary of the 300-acre tract crossed two drains of Pine Grove Fork. So the current community of Grove was called Pine Grove as early as 1845. 

 

Jeremiah Spurgeon (1825-1853)

In February 1853 son Jeremiah Spurgeon, age 28, purchased 295 acres from James F. Meline, a Cincinnati attorney who probably held title to land due to an unpaid debt. The 295 acres started at the Gilmer/Doddridge County Line, but were located wholly in Doddridge County. I have no documentation to prove where the Spurgeons lived between 1845 and 1853, but the following is from the History of Doddridge County:

 

“They moved from Bull Run [Preston County] to Tom's Fork, Doddridge County in the Pearcy Settlement. From there he came back to Bear Fork of Cove Creek. .. .”

 

Family tradition states that in early 1853, Jeremiah Spurgeon went to visit his wife’s (Rebecca Ann Vanhorn) parents near Lost Creek, Harrison County. Here he contracted typhoid fever and died. Jeremiah Spurgeon is buried at the Sheets Cemetery in Lost Creek. 

 

Death of Jonathan Spurgeon

While lying sick at Lost Creek, Jeremiah Spurgeon sold his land on Bear Fork, Doddridge County, to his father. But Jonathan died shortly after his son’s death. There is nothing to prove exactly when Jonathan died, but his wife was widowed in the 1860 Census, so it was sometime between 1853 and 1860. The History of Doddridge County says Jonathan lived out his last days on Bear Fork, “and was buried in the Boyce Cemetery located on the Frank Schulte farm on Bear Fork and was the first to be buried there, he and his wife.” 

 

Exactly where Jonathan and Catharine are buried is a mystery to me. The only Boyce Cemetery that I am aware of is in New Milton. The Childers Cemetery there is sometimes referred to as the Boyce Cemetery. Burials typically took place at a location much closer to where a person lived at the time of their death. The Frank Shulte farm was on the same branch of Bear Fork where Jonathan Spurgeon lived. However it was a little north of Jonathan’s farm. Then just east of the Spurgeon farm was land that belonged to William and Rebecca Boyce. So if anyone knows of a cemetery other than the one located on the Doddridge/Gilmer border, somewhere between Bear Fork and Rush Run, please let me know. 

 

In 1864 the Spurgeon farm was sold by the Jonathan Spurgeon Estate for $45 each to children Philip, Jesse, Mary Ann, Elizabeth and Catharine. I assume this money was used by the County Court to pay off their parent’s debts. This action pre-supposes that mother Catharine had already died, but like her husband, there is no documentation of her death. 

 

After their parents’ deaths, only children Mary Ann and George remained in Doddridge County.

 

George Spurgeon (1822-1844)

In 1843 George Spurgeon married Ruth Jane Pearcy. They had at least seven children before Ruth died in 1861 from unknown causes at the age of 37. George then married Susan Flesher and they had at least nine children. In 1864 George was obligated to serve in the Civil War, as volunteers were getting harder and harder to come by. 

 

On June 7, 1864, with the Civil War still raging, none other than the venerable Joseph H. Diss Debar wrote a letter to Governor Arthur I. Boreman in which he presented a strong argument to have George Spurgeon and near-neighbor Pinkard Brannon excused from military service. An excerpt from that letter:

 

“Not more than an hour ago I was requested by two neighbors from Gilmer to write to the proper authorities in order to get them discharged from Capt. Wiant's Co. of Scouts in which they find themselves enlisted, as they say, without their knowledge and consent. Their names are George Spurgeon and Pinkard Branham. ...They are both head of large families, with little or no help to tend their crops, and must inevitably be heavy losers by leaving home. Their families are very much distressed at this untoward occurrence and the men themselves distracted and unhappy to such an extent that in my judgment they will be entirely unfit for duties required of them, even if they possessed the courage and the active ingenuity, which ought to characterize a ranger, which is far from being the case.  ... Wiant can do no good with such men, no unwilling recruit will ever make a good scout. I promised those men to submit to you a truthful statement of their case. They cannot get substitutes; There are none to be had here.

 

“Spurgeon has a son in the 6th Va Inf, and thought when he engaged under Heckert, that the Scouts were but another name for the home guard and not subjected to regular military rule. I was under arms alongside of him two years ago during a scare at Troy, and am able to assure you that pay and rations would be wasted on him. Branham is no better, ..” 

 

Diss Debar’s arguments were of no avail, as both men ended up serving in Company C, 6th W.Va. Infantry, during the waning months of the Civil War. On his military descriptive roll card, George was described as being 5’10” tall, with blue eyes, dark hair and light complexion.

 

Mary Ann Spurgeon (1824-1916)

In 1844 daughter Mary Ann married Robert Lowther (1810-1867) and had eight children. Mary Ann did not remarry after the death of her husband and remained a widow for almost 50 years. Although the Lowthers of Doddridge and Harrison counties are well documented, Robert Lowther’s parents have not been identified with certainty.
 

Siblings Leave Doddridge

The following is a short list of Jonathan Spurgeon’s children who either never came to Doddridge or left Bear Fork one-by-one after the death of Jonathan and Catharine. 

 

Son James married Elizabeth Hall from Ritchie County, then in the late 1850s moved to Outagamie County, Wisconsin. 

 

Daughter Elizabeth married Charles Demoss from Randolph County and joined her brother in Outagamie County, Wisconsin prior to 1870.

 

Sons Philip and Jesse also did not settle in Doddridge County. They either stayed in or returned to Preston County where they died in 1872 and 1889 respectively. 

 

Daughter Catharine married William Ehrhardt, a German immigrant who had settled in Doddridge County around 1850. William and Catharine left Doddridge around 1869 and moved to Saline, Kansas.

 

Son John married Phebe Mitchell, a Preston County girl and moved to Saline, Kansas with his sister and family. 

 

Daughter Rachel married Henry Mace in Ritchie County in 1855. I completely lost track of Rachel after that. I would like to know what happened to her, but so far I've found nothing. 

 

Spurgeon Descendants

Descendants of Jonathan Spurgeon and his two wives are plentiful throughout the nation. It was through just three of his children, Jeremiah, George and Mary Ann, that Doddridge County became populated with the many descendents of Jonathan Spurgeon. Perhaps the most recognizable is Charles J. “Charley” Spurgeon (1921-2002) who helped establish the Spurgeon Funeral Home in West Union in 1947.

 

But there remain countless others. Here is just a sampling of the many current Doddridge Countians who are direct descendants of Jonathan Spurgeon: Henry Ahouse Jr., William W. Bonnell, Dawn Kniceley Richards, Cheryl Sue Lattea Cox, Kevin D. Greathouse, Dottie Carroll Cox, Crystal Jones Fullmer, John Todd Sheets, teacher Marilyn Towner Jett, EMS worker John Ross, Coach Cline Stansberry, and just about anyone with the Spurgeon surname. Just imagine how many more there would be if Jonathan’s other children hadn’t pulled up stakes and moved west!