# McKean County, Pennsylvania Along the northern edge of Pennsylvania, where the land rolls up against the New York line, McKean County drew families out of the neighboring New York towns of Almond, Bolivar, and Dartmouth in the years when the timber still stood thick and the creeks — Annin, Bell's Run, King's Run — cut the ground into workable farms. The Coopers, Lanpheres, and Grows who settled here came down from that New York country in the 1830s, cleared land, cut lumber, and stayed for generations, marrying into one another's families until the two townships of Ceres and Annin held a web of kin. ## The Coopers on Annin and at Ceres Samuel Cooper and his wife, Mary Polly Russell, brought their family from Dartmouth, New York, settling in the McKean County country by the late 1830s. Their sons Ira, Cyrus, and Russell had come even earlier, as early as 1833, and it was Russell who in 1836 built one of the first houses and, with Nelson Peabody, kept a grocery in it for some years. Samuel and Mary's other sons, **Theron** and **Silas A. Cooper**, did not remain at Ceres but took up land on Annin Creek, where both cleared farms and settled for good. Theron Cooper, born in 1813, took up the Annin land he cleared and worked for most of his life, farming and following the lumber business. In June 1840 he married **Sophia Ann Mead**, of Bolivar, New York, and they raised six children to maturity on the Annin place. Theron was living there in 1870, 1880, and still in 1900; he was buried at Turtle Point. Silas farmed nearby, appearing in Ceres in the 1850 and 1860 counts before settling on Annin, where he was recorded in 1870 and 1880. By 1900 he and **Pamelia Cooper** had removed to Port Allegany. Silas died on Annin in 1901; Pamelia followed in 1908, and both were buried at Turtle Point. The first generation's deaths came close together and are marked in the county's earliest cemeteries. **Charles Ira Cooper** died in 1849. Samuel Cooper died in October 1857, and his wife, Mary Polly Russell, in May 1860 — Russell Cooper dying that same September. Their graves lie in McKean County ground. **Cyrus W. Cooper**, one of the three brothers who came first, moved often across the county's small settlements. He sold at Ceres and bought on King's Run, lived in the village, then removed to Mapleton by 1876, to Myrtle by 1879, where his second wife died. He died in 1888 at the age of eighty-four and was buried in McKean County, leaving three surviving children — Evaline, **Ruth Adalaide "Addie" Cooper**, and Oscar. Addie, born at Ceres in 1841, married **Charles Albertus Warner** of Ceres on 16 April 1871. ## Oscar Cooper and the Lanphere marriage **Oscar F. Thaddeus Cooper**, born at Ceres on 1 September 1844, grew up in the township through the 1850, 1860, and 1870 counts. On 18 March 1867 he married **Rosalthea "Rose" Angelia Lanphere**, who had been born in 1847 and raised at Ceres in the same close neighborhood. Their family took root at Ceres through the 1870s, and their children carried Ceres and the nearby Shingle House as their birthplaces: **Nora Alice Cooper** (1869), **Eva Luella Cooper** (1872), **Sadie Harriet Cooper** (1877), and **Charles Calvin Cooper** (Bell Run, 1879). By the mid-1880s Oscar and Rose had left McKean County altogether for Brown County, South Dakota, and later Cayuga, North Dakota, where Oscar died in 1911. Their son Charles carried the family's westward move further still, to South Dakota and eventually Minnesota. ## The Lanpheres of Ceres The Lanpheres came into Ceres township in 1835, when **George W. Lanphere** and his wife, **Hanna Haskins**, both New Englanders, settled on a farm they improved and held until their deaths. Their son **Nimrod Lanphere**, born at Almond, New York, in 1817, was eighteen when he came to Ceres with his parents. He cleared and worked his own farm there, held the township offices of supervisor, judge of election, assessor, and school director, and belonged to the Seventh-Day Baptist Church. He married **Sally Sarah Grow**, daughter of George W. and Ruth Grow of the same township. Nimrod lived a long life at Ceres, recorded there from 1850 through 1900, and died in 1903. Nimrod and Sally's children grew up on the Ceres farm through the Civil War years. Two of the eldest sons went to the war: **George Washington Lanphere** enlisted in a New York regiment, was wounded at Roanoke, and re-enlisted in 1864; **Albert Leroy Lanphere** went out with the Pennsylvania Bucktails, was wounded at Gettysburg, and served three years. Albert, born in 1842, lived out his life at Ceres, dying there in 1910. His brothers and sisters — **Hyalmer Delos Lanphere** (1845–1886), **Rosalthea** (who married Oscar Cooper), **Winfield B. Lanphere** (1855–1923), **Frank Butler Lanphere** (1864–1940s), and **Nellie F. Lanphere** (born 1866) — remained closely tied to the township. Winfield lived at Ceres from the 1860s through 1920, and Frank spent his whole life in the Ceres and Otto neighborhood, appearing there in every count from 1870 to 1940. The family's losses were felt young. **Benjamin V. Lanphere** was born and died on the same day in April 1846. **Salina Alzina Lanphere** died in February 1858, and **Alzina E. Lanphere** in March 1862 at age thirteen. **John R. Lanphere** died in April 1862. These graves, together with those of Nimrod, Sally, Albert, Hyalmer, Winfield, and the elder generation, lie at Bradford. George W. Lanphere's other children settled into the same web of Ceres families: **Lois H. Lanphere** married John Chapman, **Esther Lanphere** married **Clark Stillman Wells**, and **Martha Lanphere** married **Joseph Trumball**. Esther and Martha both died in April 1896, within two weeks of each other. ## The Grows **George W. Grow** and his wife, **Ruth Cornell**, came from Almond, New York, and settled in Ceres township in 1837, locating on the farm their son James later owned. Ruth died in 1852; George lived on at Ceres until 1884. Both were buried at Bradford. Their six children who reached adulthood included **Martin C. Grow**, **Hannah Melissa Grow** (who married **Peter North**), **Sally Sarah Grow** (who married Nimrod Lanphere), **Angeline Grow**, **Celania T. Grow**, and **James R. Grow**. James, born at Almond in 1827, was reared at Ceres from the age of ten. He bought his father's homestead in 1853, cleared much of the farm, and put up the buildings that stood on it. He married **Martha A. Fuller** of Ceres township in 1850, served as township commissioner, supervisor, and school director, and belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Sons of Temperance. He farmed the homestead until his death in 1905. ## A settled country For these families, McKean County was not a way station but a place they built and held. The Coopers, Lanpheres, and Grows arrived within a few years of one another in the 1830s, cleared adjoining farms in Ceres and Annin, and bound themselves together through marriage — a Grow daughter to a Lanphere son, a Lanphere daughter to a Cooper son, Lanphere sisters to the Wells, Chapman, and Trumball men. They cut timber, farmed the cleared ground, sent sons to the war, kept the local offices, and worshiped in the Baptist and Methodist churches. When some of the younger generation left, as Oscar and Rose Cooper did for the Dakotas, they went west as families who had already learned, in this Pennsylvania hill country, how to clear a place and make it home.