Franklin Ruble Pitner's Account
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In reply to:
Accounts of Pitner Origins
4/05/00
3. The unpublished account of Franklin Rubel Pitner written March 6th, 1889 in correspondence with Clarence Fisher:
"Dear Sir: Yours of March 2nd is before me, and I proceed to give you all the information I have of the Pitner family, which is only traditional. My father, Michael Pitner, had but little education, as he lived in an early day, when education was a second consideration, and was raised in Rockingham County, Va., and married Catharine Ruble in Knox County East Tennessee, early in the year 1799, just what day or month I know not; but in a short time emigrated to West Tennessee -- which is now Middle Tennessee -- and settled in Wilson County, twenty miles east of Nashville, where he raised a family of twelve children -- seven sons and five daughters.
"He had two brothers and one sister -- John, the eldest, and Adam, the next, and Elizabeth the youngest of the family who married Edward Maxey and settled in Jefferson County, Ill. John Pitner the eldest brother, settled in Georgia and raised a family, and Adam at the Crab Orchard in Kentucky, and also raised a large family; but I never saw either of my uncles or any of their children.
"The father of those three boys was named John. I once saw a letter that he wrote and he spelled his name "Beatner" which, I am told, is the German way to spell Pitner. This John Pitner and two brothers, whose names I do not know, came over to this country before the Revolutionary war during the Huguenot persecution. They came from near the Rhine. They left a bachelor brother there, who was a stocking weaver, and tradition says he was a millionaire, and he died and his vast estate escheated to the government. All three of the brothers entered the service in the Revolutionary war, and none but John was supposed to have survived the war, as he never after heard from his brothers; yet they may be alive, or their posterity, rather.
"I saw that Mr. Cleveland vetoed a pension bill for George W. Pitner, of Rockport, Ohio, last fall. I think all the Pitners in this country are from the same old parent stock.
I was born Oct 9th 1812, and have been practicing medicine fifty years the first of the present month. I have four sons living and one daughter. My wife died Feb 8th, 1888. My daughter is keeping house for me. Two sons are Methodist ministers, and one a teacher and one a dentist.
This is about all I know of the Pitner family, all of which is respectfully submitted. Should you get any further information of the three brothers that came before the war, please inform me, as I am very anxious to learn more of my ancestry."-- F.R. Pitner, M.D.