John Cline was born on 1 March 1764 in Manchester Township, York County, Pennsylvania, the son of Andreas and Florentina Klein. [1] On 28 November 1780, John, aged “sixteen years and upward,” petitioned the York County Orphans’ Court to choose Peter Shultz as his guardian. [2]
The earliest record of John in Shenandoah County, Virginia, is in the 1787 personal property tax list. He was the second of Andreas’ sons to make his way to Shenandoah County. He was listed with Isaac Layman, who paid John’s tax, indicating that he was living with and probably working for Isaac Layman. [3]
On 15 June 1789, Isaac Layman was surety for the bond for John’s marriage to Mary Ann Armstrong. [4] They were the parents of ten children born between 1790 and 1813.
John Cline was a blacksmith and farmer. His first purchase of land was in 1791, when he and John Blaughey purchased ninety-one acres on the drains of Cedar Creek, in Frederick County, from Richard Longacre. [5] Since John is found in Shenandoah County tax lists for this period, it does not appear that he settled his family on this land, which he and Blaughey sold in 1796. [6]
The next year a survey was made for John of 138 acres at the foot of Little North Mountain, land for which he a received patent for the land from the Commonwealth of Virginia on 29 October 1798. This land was in Shenandoah County and adjoined land of Jacob Parrot, Frederick Parrott, Jr., and Valentine Rodes. [7] It is likely John was living on this land by the time of the survey. Rodes purchased 50 acres of this tract in 1801. [8]
In 1806 John bought 31 acres on Toms Brook near Saumsville from Joseph Layman [9] and made his home there until 1818. In August of that year John sold the remainder of his 1798 grant, 88 acres, and his 31-acre home place and shortly afterward moved his family to Harrison County, Indiana.
Two of John and Mary Ann’s sons remained in Shenandoah County, and John must have assisted them in acquiring their own land. On 8 September 1822, John Cline Sr.—who was by that time in Indiana—George Cline, and John Cline Jr., purchased three tracts of land containing 161½ acres in Shenandoah County from the executors of the estate of Richard P. Barton. The next year the sons bought out their father’s interest. [10]
In Indiana John purchased 120 acres of land in the northeast quarter of section 8 of Scott township in Harrison County, Indiana. [11] He and Mary Ann spent the rest of their lives on this farm. John died in Harrison County, Indiana, on 30 June 1835, aged 71 years and 4 months. [12]
Mary Ann was born in 1767 and died on 17 September 1835. [13]
John's will was probated on 24 September 1835. He left his entire estate to Mary Ann during her lifetime and directed that after her death the personal property and land were to be sold and the proceeds divided equally among his children, except that the two youngest, David and Levi, were to receive an extra $15 each. His executors were Mary Ann and his son-in-law, Samuel Clark. Samuel eventually distributed $312 from the estate, with John Jr.'s not being delivered until 13 October 1846. [14]
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