READ FAMILY CONNECTIONS

BACHMAN
HAROLD J. Sr. 1908 - 1969
EDITH A. 1907 - 1993

In about 1865, the Reads moved to Kingston Borough, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Ira decided to leave farming due to failing health. The family purchased a home in Kingston on the corner of Wyoming Avenue and Hoyt Street on 14 March 1867 (LCLR Deeds Book 115, page 380). A month later, Sarah's parents sold the farm in Dallas Township to Perry W. Warden of Dallas Township. Perry Warden was one of the brothers of Ura P. Warden Reed, the wife of Sarah's first cousin Levi Reed⁵ (Isaac Read, IV⁴, Richard Read³, Isaac Read, Sr.², Joseph Read¹). The purchase of the Kingston lot was made almost two and half weeks before the death of Sarah's grandfather, Richard Read, on 31 March 1867 in Frelinghuysen Township, Warren County, New Jersey.

Sarah's father worked in the hardware business in Kingston for about three years. In about 1868, he began working as a traveling saleman for the firm of William Bertols across the Susquehanna River in the city of Wilkes-Barre (Bradsby 1893). Sarah's family continued to live in Kingston. The 1870 census lists Sarah's family as residents of Kingston Borough. Sarah and her sisters all attended school in Kingston. (1870 United States Federal Census, Kingston Borough, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, page 120L, 9 July 1870). The family lived around the corner from the Wyoming Seminary and Commerical College, a coed prep and business school. It is possible that the three girls attended school there. I do not have documentation conerning their education. However, the Kingston location gave Sarah and her sisters access to educational opportunties, such as high school, that were not always available in rural school districts.

Henry Bachman probably died in 1891. According Bradsby (1893), the nineteenth-century biographer, after the death of her husband, Sarah moved in with her widowed mother who owned a house in Miners Mill Borough, Luzerne County. She ran a dress making business out of the house. The 1892 directory does not include an occupation for her. By 1900, Sarah owned a house next to her mother's home, although the home was mortgaged. She was still employed as a dressmaker. Her son Arthur lived with her and was employed as a clerk (1900 United States Federal Census, Miner's Mill Borough, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, enumeration district 88, sheet 4B, 2 June 1900). Sarah's mother Elizabeth Read had evidently been in poor health for several years. She decided to sign her home over to Sarah and executed a deed of sale to Sarah on 16 September 1901. The ded included a provision that Elizabeth was to have a life interest in the property and the right to occupy the house for life. The sale was for one dollar. In the deed Elizabeth stated that "This deed is made out of love and affection as well as the consideration above named [the one dollar sale price], the grantee (who is the daughter of the grantor herein) having kept and maintained the grantor herein for several years past, and the appreciation of the grantor for said kindess is the moving consideration for this conveyance." Sarah was to assume the mortgage on the property and the house was subject to the $800 judgement in favor of James I. Ribbel (LCLR Deeds Book 395, page 170).

Elizabeth lived for another 10 and a half years after the sale of the house to Sarah in Miner's Mill. Sarah's son (and Elizabeth's grandson) Arthur R. Bachman married circa 1904. He and his wife Margaret had their first child, sometime between 1904 and 1908. This child died before 1910. Their second child, Harold J. Bachman was born in April 1908. A daughter named Margaret arrived circa 1911. The 1910 census lists Arthur and Margaret and little Harold as residents of 20 Miner's Mill Road. Elizabeth and Sarah lived in 22 Miner's Mill Road. It appears that Sarah had moved into her mother's home and that Arthur and his wife lived in the house that he and his mother had shared in 1900. He and margaret were renting the house. Arthur was still employed as a clerk in a department store. Sarah was still running a dressmaking establishment (1910 United States Federal Census, Miner's Mill Borough, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Enumeration District 70, sheets 6A-6B).

Elizabeth Read died on 10 May 1912 and was buried in Forty Fort Cemetery, on the south side of the old meeting house in Forty Fort, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Sarah continued to live in Miners Mill after her mother died. Her son Arthur died in 1917. He was buried near his Read grandparents in Forty Fort Cemetery. His grave stone was field checked on 6 January 2000 and is inscribed:

A.R. BACHMAN
DEC 31 1881
OCT 23 1917
FATHER

After Arthur's death Margaret, Harold and little Margaret moved in with Sarah. By the time of the 1920 census the four Bachmans lived at 53 Miner Road in Miners Mills. This probably does not reflect a move to an new house, rather it reflects a change in the street numbering system in Miner's Mill. Many urban areas in the United States changed the numbering of lots along their streets in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the population of urban areas expanded. The census year 1910 was a water-shed in American history as it marked the first time more Americans lived in urban areas than on farms; a trend which has continued to the current day. In 1920, neither Sarah nor Margaret was employed, but they had a boarder named Thomas Jenkins. Jenkins was born in Wales in circa 1870 and came to the United States in 1874. He became a naturalized citizen in 1895 (1920 United States Census, Miners Mill, 7^th Ward, Miners Mill Borough, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Enumeration District 122, sheet 17, 21 January 1920). Sarah died on 9 November 1930 and was buried with the rest of her family on the south side of the old Methodist Meeting House in Forty Fort Cemetery. The gravestone was field checked 6 January 2000.

SARAH READ BACHMAN
APRIL 20 1853
NOVEMBER 9 1930