b. 28/12/1837 Greene County, Pennsylvania. d. 27/10/1910 Jefferson, Pennsylvania.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 05/04/1865 Paine’s Crossroads, Virginia.
Civil War Medal of Honor Recipient. Served during the Civil War as a Sergeant in Company F, 1st Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry. He was awarded the CMOH for his bravery at Paines Crossroads, Virginia on April 5, 1865. He was presented with the Medal on May 3, 1865.
Following his honourable discharge from the military, Young returned home to Greene County where, in 1865, he married and began his own family. He and his wife, Minerva, a fellow native of Pennsylvania (born June 29, 1842), welcomed the births of their daughter, Millie, in July 1867, and their son, John, in November 1870. A farmer in 1880, Young resided with his wife and two children in Greene County’s borough of Jefferson. According to historian William Hanna, the Young’s home was situated on “the identical place where the old stockade was erected about the year 1770.” According to Bates, that former stockade was known as “Fort Swan and Vanmeter,” and it was located “near the border of Cumberland Township” at “a noted rallying point … for the venturesome pioneers and their families.” Young’s home in the 1880s, per Bates, had been built on the same grounds where the home of his wife’s great-grandfather had stood during the early 1770s. Historian Thomas Lynch Montgomery narrowed down the location of Swan’s home at the fort further in 1916, stating that it had been situated “near the present town of Carmichaels.”
Suffering from rheumatism by 1890, he was awarded a U.S. Civil War Pension in 1897. By 1900, he had moved with his wife and children into the Jefferson home of his mother-in-law, Sarah Neel. Employed as a U.S. Postmaster that year, his daughter, Millie, was employed as the Assistant U.S. Postmaster while his son, John, worked as a farmer.
MOH CITATION:
Capture of flag.
BURIAL LOCATION: JEFFERSON CEMETERY, JEFFERSON, PENNSYLVANIA.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.