Sampson Smith Frum, son of William and Anna Smith Frum, was born January 27, 1790 in Frederick County, Virginia. It is said that he came to Morgans Town in 1803 as an assistant to a packhorse train from Winchester, Virginia. To date, I have found no Monongalia County records before 1804 for the Frum family. Sampson Smith Frum has a War of 1812 marker on his gravesight, although I have not been able to locate any of his service records.
Sampson became interested in the territory lying along the Monongahela River and in a few years began purchasing land with his savings. He continued to do this until, at his death in 1862, he possessed the largest acreage of any single individual in the county. When his estate was settled in 1863, he had three farms near Uffington consisting of 283 acres, one on Cobun’s Creek of 85 acres, four on Aaron Creek of 551 acres, making a total of 919 acres in Monongalia County. He also owned 360 acres in Frederick County, Virginia near Winchester and two houses on two lots in Morgantown.
Sampson had various business interests, but early in life, made farming and livestock his chief interest. There was little market in Morgantown, so his products were driven east on foot to Baltimore, resting for a period on his farm near Winchester. The livestock were then exported to Europe.
On June 8, 1815 in Monongalia County, (West) Virginia Sampson married Elizabeth VanGilder, daughter of Jacob and Anna Margaret Kibler VanGilder. Together they raised a family of six children. Elizabeth died on August 1, 1845 and Sampson on November 13, 1862. Both are buried in the Old Frum Cemetery along Aaron Creek, outside of Morgantown, West Virginia. A number of their descendants also rest in the family cemetery.
Children of Sampson Smith Frum and Elizabeth VanGilder
ANNE LOUISE FRUM b. September 2, 1817 in Monongalia Co., WV d. August 11, 1893 in Monongalia Co., WV married WILLIAM LANHAM POOL on May 14, 1839.
Updated November, 2009
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Family research a cooperative effort and I would like to thank Robert Poole Wilkins, Ruth Cullen, and others too numerous to mention, for their help researching the Frum family line.
There is an index of the OLD FRUM CEMETERY that I submitted to the USGenWeb Archives for Monongalia County. I have also submitted the Old Frum Cemetery list to Findagrave.com. When I first visited the cemetery it was an easy walk down the hill from the Old Kingwood Pike. Two summers ago, my brother and I drove out the Kingwood Pike to have another look and were not able to get onto the farm property where the cemetery is located. The owners now have a barbed wire fence surrounding their farmland.
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