Tied to history: Local man accepted into national society of Sons of Revolution
Local man accepted into national society of Sons of Revolution
Kirk Johnson with his second cousin, Erie SAR chapter secretary Bill Harry, at an SAR meeting in Titusville in April. Though they had never met before this year, Johnson and Harry are both descendants in the same generation of Captain Jacob Gano.
This is the grave of Captain Jacob Gano (1735-1812) in the Burket Road Methodist Cemetery in Warriors Mark, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
Kirk Johnson at the grave of another of his American Revolutionary War ancestors, his fifth great grandfather on his mother's side, Albert Acker, in the Lakeview Cemetery in Groveland, Livingston County, New York.
Kirk Johnson with his second cousin, Erie SAR chapter secretary Bill Harry, at an SAR meeting in Titusville in April. Though they had never met before this year, Johnson and Harry are both descendants in the same generation of Captain Jacob Gano.
This is the grave of Captain Jacob Gano (1735-1812) in the Burket Road Methodist Cemetery in Warriors Mark, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
Kirk Johnson at the grave of another of his American Revolutionary War ancestors, his fifth great grandfather on his mother's side, Albert Acker, in the Lakeview Cemetery in Groveland, Livingston County, New York.
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Kirk Johnson of Warren has recently been accepted into the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
He is a member of the Erie Chapter.
The Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) is a national male lineage organization dedicated to preserving American history, promoting patriotism, and honoring the memory of the American Revolutionary War patriots who secured the independence of the United States of America.
Johnson has several known veterans of the Revolutionary War as ancestors, but chose to focus on his fifth great grandfather on his father’s side, Jacob Gano (1735-1812), of Warriors Mark for the purposes of his SAR application.
Jacob Gano served as a captain in the 6th Company, 2nd Battalion of the Bedford County, Pennsylvania Militia under Lt. Col. Hugh Davidson and Major John Shaver. Bedford County was a frontier area at that time, so service included local defense, patrols, and guarding settlements against British-allied Indian raids.
The central Pennsylvania frontier was a volatile theater of the Revolutionary War. The British paid, armed, and supplied Indian tribes to launch devastating raids on the Pennsylvania frontier. The goal was to terrorize settlements, destroy grain supplies feeding George Washington's army, and to divert Continental troops away from the main Eastern battlefields.
The famous local Chief Cornplanter of the Seneca Indians, for example, was allied with the British during the Revolutionary War and led brutal raids against American settlers in the Wyoming Valley area of northeastern Pennsylvania.
Captain Jacob Gano and his wife, Elizabeth, are laid to rest in the Burket Road Methodist Cemetery in Warriors Mark, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
Johnson was inspired to join the SAR primarily by his grandmother Evelyn Ganoe Johnson of Bradford, who conducted genealogical research into her Ganoe family tree prior to her passing in 2005. A detailed Ganoe family history that she authored is available for review in the Reference Room of the Warren Public Library.
Notable also is the late Judi Wilson of Warren, who was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and whom Johnson served with on the City of Warren Parks and Recreation Commission for ten years. Wilson often brought important historical information from the DAR about Warren's expansive, heavily forested George Washington Park before the Commission for review.
Johnson felt particularly compelled to join the SAR now with 2026 being the 250th anniversary year of the birth of America. He walked this year with the Erie SAR Chapter in the Millcreek Fourth of July America250 Semiquincentennial Parade in Erie.
Those interested in joining the SAR should visit the official website at www.sar.org, and for the DAR it is www.dar.org.