Peter Finger’s Pumpkin Patch (1778)
…where the Sherrills Ford road crosses Leeper’s Creek.
According to well-documented Finger Family genealogy most of the Fingers in the Southern United States are descended from Peter Finger, who was born about 1724 in Germany and settled in York County, Pennsylvania in 1749. Peter and his wife, Catherine Barbara Reinhardt, apparently came to the Catawba Valley in the North Carolina backcountry around 1777. The following year they purchased their first tract of land in what is now Lincoln County from Abraham Keener, on Leppers Creek — part of the “Cline Tract” which spanned both sides of the creek.
“The Fingers of Lincoln (county) are descended from Peter Finger, a Pennsylvania Dutchman. The first mention of the name in the public records is a deed of date 23rd May, 1778, from Abraham Keener to Peter Finger on Leeper’s Creek. This became his home, and lies in Ironton township, seven miles east of Lincolnton, where the Sherrills Ford road crosses Leeper’s Creek.” — Alfred Nixon (1903)
Peter’s brother-in-law was Christian Reinhardt, another German who settled in the Catawba Valley in the 1750s along with Abraham and his father — Casper Keener — as well as the Weidner, Shrum, Martin, and other German families. Christian’s doorstep would become the site of a civil war during the American Revolution — the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill).
James Finger has published a comprehensive and detailed genealogy and account of Peter Keener’s family in The Southern Finger Family: Peter Finger’s Pumpkin Patch 1730–1996. Peter’s grandson, also named Peter, bought land in Catawba County on the east side of Jacob’s Ford river and farmed it with a “negro man known as Frank Finger whom he bought at a sale.” According to the Hickory Democrat (April 15, 1915; Page 2), “Frank always thought he was the cause of the Mexican war. This gave him much trouble.”
Another member of Peter’s “pumpkin patch” was my grandmother (pictured above), who married a descendent of Casper and Abraham — namely my paternal grandfather. According to the Newton Enterprise (April 22, 1904), D. A. Finger was one of the original eight men living in Maiden when it incorporated — the others were M. T. Boyd, T. F. Drum, G. W. Keener (my great-grandfather), D. M. Carpenter, Perry Carpenter, D. M. Boyd, and G. P. Drum. So if Peter Finger (my sixth-great grandfather) hadn’t purchased that pumpkin patch from Abraham Keener (another sixth-great grandfather) in 1778, you might not be reading this. :)
