Tracing the Ownership of the Daniel Korns, Jr. farm

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Introduction
This web page traces some of the ownership history of the Southampton township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania farm that belonged to my uncle Melvin Lester Korns, my grandfather Allen Lester Korns and his brother John Harvey Korns, my great-grandfather John Wilson Korns, my great-great-grandfather Daniel Korns, Jr., John Sturtz, and Christian Sturtz, Jr. The farm is now owned by one of Allen Korns's descendants.

In the following image, which is from a 2022 county plat map, the boundary of the farm is highlighted in yellow. The farm can be traced back to surveys of four different tracts that were performed in 1767.

Allen Lester Korns acquires his brother's half of the farm
When John Harvey Korns was killed by a rock fall in a coal mine on December 29, 1930, he and his brother Allen Lester Korns were joint owners of the farm. The deeds below were in the possession of Mrs. Melvin Lester Korns (Dolores) when she died. They are related to Allen's acquisition of John's half of the farm after John's death. I didn't know that John and Allen were joint owners of the farm until I saw these deeds on December 2, 2022 and started asking one of my cousins some questions.

John Wilson Korns
I do not have paperwork for when Allen & John Korns acquired the farm from their father John Wilson Korns (or his estate), or for when John Wilson Korns acquired the farm from his father Daniel Korns, Jr., but I know from oral tradition that John Wilson Korns and Daniel Korns, Jr. were previous owners of the farm. John Wilson Korns was born in 1858 and died on September 13, 1926. Daniel Korns, Jr. was born in 1820 and died July 7, 1901.

Source of some of the documents referenced below
Some of the real estate-related legal documents and surveys that are referenced below were provided by the Rev. Ken Korns, son of Lester, grandson of Earl, and great-grandson of John Wilson Korns. The reason Ken has the documents is because at one time, due to a timber sale, there was a need to know the boundary between his grandfather Allen E. Troutman's farm and the Korns farm. The property owners didn't know where the boundary was exactly, so with the aid of these old deeds and drafts, they were able to accurately establish the boundary, locating the original stone piles that were used as markers.

A mysterious 1886 draft
The documents linked in this section were received from Ken Korns as part of the aforementioned property search, but I am not 100% certain how they pertain to the farm of my grandfather Allen Lester Korns. Based on the shape of the surveys, I suspect they represent property that is located immediately south of and adjoins the Korns farm.

Click here for a draft, which reads "Copy of draft made by A.J. Colborn 3rd Decr 1860 at the instance of Sherrif Walker & being the real estate of Adam Sturtz decd, - Per Orphans Court Docket of Somerset County Penna vol. 7 page 386. The part in blue - 108 as & 114 ps. Was sold by S. Boyer Trustee &c to D&M Hay, now owned by J.A Korns 28th May 1886. D. Meters, Sur." The referenced "J.A Korns" may be the still-mysterious J. Alfred Korns.

Click here for an undated draft that shows the aforementioned 108 acres & 114 perches, which reads "Situate in Southampt Township, Somerset (&c) County, ajoining (sic) other land of Adam Sturts (sic)".

Daniel Korns, Jr. paid a judgement on the farm in 1883
Click here for a document from Ken Korns that shows that Daniel Korns, Jr. paid a judgment on the farm in 1883. The document reads "Meyersdale Pa Dec 14 1883 Received of Daniel Korns thirteen hundred & twenty nine & ______ seven cents Being Principle amount of Judgement (sic) in the Real Estate of John Sturtz Died Shown & entered to No 234 Aug __, 1879 16 May 1884 ______ _______ Dennis Cook trustee for the sale of the Real Estate of John sturtz decd".

Page 78 of the 1949 book "The Genealogy of Michael Korns, Sr. of Somerset County Pennsylvania" incorrectly (in my opinion) indicates that the farm had once belonged to Daniel Korns, Sr. The 1883 judgement document clearly indicates that Daniel Korns, Jr. bought the farm from the estate of John Sturtz.

I infer that the reason for the 1883 judgment may have been a tardy payment by the person who bought Daniel Korns's previous farm in Richy Hollow. For more information on that tardy payment, see below.

An 1876 map shows Daniel Korns living on the farm
We know from the 1876 F.W. Beers & Co. "County Atlas of Somerset Pennsylvania" that Daniel Korns, Jr. was already living on the farm by 1876, because on the map of Southampton Township, the house is labeled as "D. Korns". The place in Richie Hollow where Daniel Korns had previously lived is labeled "J.D. Roddy".

By family tradition, Daniel Korns, Jr. moved to the farm circa 1870-71
On July 19, 1998 I visited for the last time with Lester Korns, a much-loved Somerset County patriarch, who was well versed in local Korns history and genealogy. Lester died of pneumonia on Saturday Dec. 5, 1998, on his 89th birthday following a barnyard fall that broke his hip. He was the son of Earl T. and Ella (Lepley) Korns.

Lester told me that Dan Korns, Jr. (father of Wilse Korns) lived on a farm back in Richy Hollow, (My father hiked back there many years ago with Allen Korns to see the foundations) and said that the Daniel "Dan" Korns, Jr. family moved to the Sturtz farm when Dan's son Wilse was 12 years old. John Wilson Korns was born March 10, 1858, according to his tombstone, so according to the oral tradition, the family would have moved sometime between March 10, 1870 and March 10, 1871. Daniel Korns, Jr. was born April 6, 1820, according to his tombstone, so according to the oral tradition, he would have been about 50 years old when he moved his family to the farm.

Lester also said that Dan Korns, Jr. sold the Richy Hollow farm for three thousand dollars and bought the Sturtz farm for four thousand dollars after the Sturtz's died. According to Lester, the man who bought the Richy Hollow farm had only paid Dan Korns, Jr. two thousand dollars, and then moved on to Philadelphia. According to Lester, Dan Korns, Jr. went to Philadelphia after the debt, and came back with the one thousand dollars he was owed. Richy hollow is north of the Daniel Korns, Jr. farm, along Gladdens Run. There is some truth to this tradition, because Daniel Korns had to go to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Philadelphia to win a court case for money he was owed. The court case references John D. Roddy.

An 1870 survey shows that part of the farm was taken from the Christian Sturtz tract
Survey Book C-221 Page 296 shows that the farm includes part of a larger tract that was patented to Christian Sturtz on March 5, 1817. The 1817 property is documented by Survey Book C-204 Page 152. As shown by the title page of that survey, the purchase money for the tract wasn't paid until August 11, 1870, shortly after the death of John Sturtz, and long after the 1826 death of Christian Sturtz, Sr. and the 1830 death of Christian Sturtz, Jr.

The following composite image incorporates images from the 1870 Sturtz Heirs survey and the 2022 county plat map. The dashed lines on the 1870 Sturtz Heirs survey represent the 1817 Christian Sturtz survey (Survey Book C-204 Page 152) that is referenced above. The border of the Korns farm is highlighted in yellow on the 2022 plat map. To scale the 1870 and 2022 images to one another, I made the measurement between the westernmost and northernmost corners of the boundary of the Korns farm approximately the same as the measurement between the corresponding corners of the Sturtz Heirs survey. The westernmost corner of the Korns farm is aligned with the corresponding corner of the Sturtz Heirs survey. Red and blue lines project from the 1870 survey images to establish the approximate location of the southern boundary line of the 1817 Christian Sturtz survey on the 2022 plat map (thick green line).

An 1870 survey shows that part of the farm was taken from the Alexander Edwards tract.
Book-C-221-Page-295 shows that the farm includes part of a larger tract that was surveyed for Alexander Edwards in 1767. Compare to the 2022 county plat map above, and the 1867 draft of the farm that is included below.

Considering the information presented above, it is clear that a bit of the southwest portion of the farm was taken from the tract that was surveyed to George Milligan in 1767 and "Retd &c Novr 1816 on Wt of 14th Inst. to Adam Lepley" (Book C-131 Page-12).

An 1869 draft of the farm
The following draft, which was made in August of 1869, was in the possession of Mrs. Melvin Korns when she died. It matches the property shape shown on the 2022 county plat map. The survey is labeled John Sturtz's heirs".

Farm owner John Sturz died in 1868
According to the typed W.P.A. cemetery readings, John Sturtz died on July 21, 1868 at the age of 78 years, 7 months, and 2 days, and is buried in the Lepley Cemetery. That cemetery is located one-half-mile south of where the two story farmhouse was located on the Korns farm. (That house was located approximately at 39.76136351571205, -78.82604923558644.)

1850 map shows John Sturtz living on the farm
On the 1850 Walker map of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, Daniel Korns is living in Richie Hollow and John Sturtz is living on the farm that Daniel Korns eventually purchased and lived on. Click here to see the listing for the John Sturtz family in the manuscript 1850 census records of Southampton Township.

Documents showing the purchase of the farm by John Sturtz
The following real estate-related documents, which were provided by Ken Korns, show that John Sturtz was an administrator in the estate of Christian Sturtz Jr., and bought the property from other descendants who had a joint right to the property. Two of the documents make it clear that the farm was the mention (mansion) plantation of Christian Sturtz, Jr. (I interpret "mention" as a mis-spelling of "mansion" because there is no previous reference to a plantation within the two documents.)