No doubt the cause of the removal from Pennsylvania was the outbreak of the Indian war when the Indians attacked the settlers and killed Mr. Compher, the first of our ancestors of that name in America , leaving his wife a widow with two small sons. She hastily gathered a little food and started through the woods with her two small boys closely pursued by the Indians. Finding that they were gaining upon her, she laid her bread upon a stump in the woods as they fled, which was what probably saved their lives, as the Indians were so close upon them that they could hear their shouts when they found the food, which they stopped to eat, and she and her sons escaped to the settlement and were saved. Shortly after, they, with the other German settlers, moved to Virginia where these two brothers became the ancestors of the Compher Family of today, one brother forming our branch, the other one the other family, which there are a number living in Virginia and Maryland . Unfortunately, I have not been able to learn their names or the name of their father as some years ago the early records of the Lutheran Church of that community were destroyed by fire.

Our Great Grandfather was Peter Compher who married Maria Cramer. To this union were born two daughters and three sons, John, Peter and William, the youngest of which was our grandfather. When Great-grandfather Compher was still a strong man, about 1810, he with his sons, were working in his field harvesting with other men to help him, when his and another’s dog got in a fight. He tried to separate the dogs but the owner of the other dog, a man named Davis , stabbed him, killing him there in the field where they were working. The two daughters married and moved to Ohio , one settling near Janeville, the other, who married an Adams , moved near Cincinnati . The oldest son, John, married Margaret Spring March 29,1808 . She was a sister of Grandmother Compher. Three children were born to then – Sarah, Peter, Elizabeth . When John died, his brother Peter married the widow March 26,1816 and they had five children – Mary, William, Jacob, William Frederick, and Margaret Ann – two of the children dying in infancy. Peter Compher, born May 21,1793 , died March 3,1886 . His wife, Margaret, died Sept. 14,1867 .

As I have said, Grandfather William Compher was the youngest child of Maria Cramer, was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, July 13,1796, and one of my prized heirlooms is the certificate of Grandfather’s birth and baptism printed in German. While still a boy in his teens, the War of 1812 opened and he and his brother, Peter, both enlisted in the defense of their country. Shortly after this enlistment, when he was moving to the defense of Baltimore , Grandfather was taken sick with the typhoid fever and after six months of sickness was discharged because of disability.

Early in 1817, his married Mary Spring, a daughter of Frederick and Barbara Stoneburner Spring, a sister of Margaret Spring, who his brother had married. She was one of a family of eight children – Frederick, Adam, and Peter, Margaret, who has been mentioned, Elizabeth, who married Thomas Prichard, Susan, who married Thomas Davis, Nancy who married James Jewell, and Mary, our grandmother. Her father Frederick, Frederick Spring , was a soldier of the Revolutionary War. William Compher, having arrived at the age of 21 in the summer of 1817 and received his share of his father’s estate, decided to seek a home in the new country opened to settlement in Ohio . He and his young bride gathered a few of their treasured possessions with $800.00 in gold, and leading them in a wagon, they started on the long and wearisome trip of those days by the Cumberland Trail over the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they took the boat down the Ohio River to Wheeling and than once more started to drive over the new roads to Zanesville to secure a farm near his sister there, but his wife’s Father and Mother being with them, they thought they would stop and see her brother who lived near where Piedmont now is. He persuaded them to locate near him, so, looking around among the woods, he found a farm near him which he decided to buy – the northeast quarter of Section 22, Moorefield, Harrison Co. – a farm of 160 acres which he bought on March 7, 1818, receiving a patent deed signed by James Madison, President, paying $2.50 an acre, as this farm joined Section 16 which was reserved for school instead of the usual price of $1.25 per acre. The nearest town was Moorefield, which consisted of only a few houses having been laid out two years before. The nearest Post Office was Cadiz – fourteen miles away. The farm was unimproved and covered with a growth of large trees, but by hard labor he soon had a cleared place of land and a comfortable big house erected upon it which they continue to occupy until in the summer of 1839, when he erected the large two story brick dwelling where he lived the remainder of his life – the bricks having been made and burned upon the farm.

I think it particularly appropriate to hold the reunion here at this was their church home for so many years. Not finding any Lutheran Church in this community, shortly after the organization of the Nottingham Presbyterian Church, they joined this church and remain members until the Slavery question arose, when the Compher family, being men of strong convictions of the evil of human slavery and wishing to throw all their influence against it, joined the Stillwater Free Presbyterian Church. When the Civil War settled forever the slavery question, they returned to Nottingham .

As they fought the slavery evil, so it was natural for them to oppose the drink evil also and Grandfather was the first man of the community to refuse to furnish a jug of whiskey for his harvest hands.

By hard labor and good judgment, he prospered until he was one of the largest landowners of the community and was able to give each of his children a farm when they married.

William Compher – Born July 13, 1796 , Died April 4, 1872 .

Mary Spring Compher – Born Sept. 19, 1793 , Died August 27,1877 .

Children of this union – Susanna, John, Elizabeth, Adam, William, Marion, Peter, Jacob, Samuel, Joseph, and Sarah Jane who all grew to maturity except the last. They were plain hard – working, honest people who enjoyed the respect and confidence of their friends and neighbors.

 Of such the poet has said:

Home and fame from no condition rise,

Act well your part, there all honor lies.