Johan Wilhelm Best and Anna Catherine Dorn

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Husband Johan Wilhelm Best ¹

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            AKA: John William Best 2
           Born: Abt 1733 - Palatinate, Germany
     Christened: 
           Died: 1823 - Clarion Co, PA 1
         Buried:  - St. Paul's Union Cemetery, Knox, Beaver Twp, Clarion Co, PA

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         Father: Wilhelm Best (1713-1762) 2
         Mother: Anna Susanna Schaeffer (Abt 1717-      ) 2

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       Marriage: 

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   Other Spouse: Catherine Kuster (      -Abt 1776) 1 - Abt 1763 - Northampton Co, PA

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Wife Anna Catherine Dorn ³

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           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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         Father: John Dorn, Sr. (      -      ) 3
         Mother: Barbara Schaeffer (      -      ) 3

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Children

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General Notes: Husband - Johan Wilhelm Best

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He was 5 years old when he left Germany with his parents. His father died he was nineteen years old and he became the guardian of the family. With his first wife he had 5 children, 4 girls and 1 boy. His second wife was his cousin, the daughter of his mother's sister. They had 7 children. In 1773-4 he moved his family to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Shortly after he joined the Westmoreland County Rangers and fought in the Revolutionary War. His headstone is honored with a marker of that struggle. Sometime after the war he moved his family to Venango County, a part which later became what is now Clarion County. He was a successful farmer and his family became the backbone of the St Paul's Lutheran Church, south of Knox, near a location known today as Wentling's Corner. It is about a mile north of Interstate 80 at the Knox exit. The church was founded in 1818 on land donated by the Bests.

He came to America with his parents in 1738. There is a story that he got lost once as a boy when looking for the cows at night, and a friendly Indian led him home. Later this Indian is said to have warned the family when Indian raids were imminent in the area. William Jr. is said to have fought in the French and Indian Wars. After the death of his father, he bought the family farm. Later about 1775, he sold his property in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and moved to Hempfield township, Westmoreland County, where he cleared and cultivated a large farm, and had a grist and saw-mill on the north branch of the Sewickley. He was Captain and Court Marshall man of a Westmoreland County military company to defend the frontier settlements against raids of the British and Indians during the Revolution. He was a member of the Harrold Lutheran community, then later after the Lutheran Church in Greensburg was established, he was a deacon and elder there. He lived in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, until he was quite old, then about 1821 he went to Clarion County where most of his children had already settled. The Clarion County Bests were the nucleus of St. Paul's Lutheran Church near Knox, Beaver township, which was at one time called "Best's Church".

1 Terrance L. Johnson-Cooney, The Exley Family 1789 to 2005 (Self-published, Aug, 2005), Pg 62.

2 Jude Ann Fischer, Wilhelm Best - Abridged Edition (Privately published, 1985), Pg 11.

3 Jude Ann Fischer, Wilhelm Best - Abridged Edition (Privately published, 1985), Pg 6.