Nidick

Complied with the help of Diana Nidick

The information Ernest William Nidick has gathered about his life comes from his Civil War Pension papers.

The Nidicks arrived in the United States from Germany sometime in the 1600s-eventually making their way to southwestern Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is not known if William Nidick was born in Ohio or Pennsylvania as his family moved back and forth between the states. William married Margaret Mann, whose family came to Pennsylvania from Germany in 1836 before moving to Ohio. Ernest, born June 18, 1838, at Trail Run, Ohio, was William and Margaret’s first and only son-they later had three daughters.

When Ernest was about 16, he left home and traveled over the states working odd jobs. When the Civil War broke out he was in Tennessee-a Southern state. Ernest traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to enlist to fight for the Union. He was wounded and discharged-there is no mention in his pension papers of what happened or if the injuries occurred in battle.

In 1865, Ernest married Mary McClue in Pittsburgh. They had the following children: Winona (Austin), Harvey McClure, Mabel, George E., Bertha (Bezner), Walter, William Ernest and Mary. The family lived in New Brighton, Beaver County, where Ernest was employed as a caulker. At the time he applied for his pension, the only children still living were Winona, Harvey, George, Bertha and William. When Mary died in 1907, Ernest moved to Star City, West Virginia, to live with his daughter Bertha.

Ernest’s descendants have no idea how he became involved with MLUPC; however, Ernest and Mary were living in Pittsburgh when Mabel was born so perhaps they moved back and forth between Pittsburgh and Beaver County. It is believed there are more Nidick’s buried in the plot than just Ernest-possibly his wife and a daughter of Ernest’s son William. (William; his wife, Elizabeth Stockfish; and her father, Frederick A. Stockfish, are buried at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery. Their plots are within sight Ernest’s grave.)