History of Bucks County, Pa Volume 3 by William H. Davis
Names and Page # Index

WILLIAM RENNER

WILLIAM RENNER. Among the prominent business and public spirited men of the thriving borough of Perkasie is William Renner, who has been identified with its business interests since its incorporation. Mr. Renner was born in Rockhill township, bucks county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1843, and is a son of John and Catharine (Kramer) Renner, both natives of Rockhill township, and descendants of early German settlers in Bucks county. Valentine Renner, the pioneer ancestor of the family, came to Pennsylvania from Germany nearly a century and three-quarters ago, arriving in Philadelphia in the ship "Johnson," of London, Captain David Crockett, September 19, 1732. He was a young man, and was accompanied by his wife Magdalena, and an infant daughter Catharina. Following the trend of German-American immigration up the Schuylkill and its tributaries into the neighborhood of the Skippack, and thence into Milford township, Bucks county, where he resided for a time, in the year 1762 he purchased a farm in Bedminster township, where he lived until his death in 1781. He was a weaver by trade, and followed that occupation in connection with the tilling of the soil and clearing his farm of 130 acres. The children of Valentine (or Felty) and Magdalena Renner were: John, Peter, Jacob, Henry, Adam, Clara, Catharine, Magdalena, Michael, and Elizabeth.

JACOB RENNER, eldest son of Valentine and Magdalena, was a blacksmith by trade, and followed that vocation in Milford township, Bucks county, where he remained on the removal of his parents to Bedminster. He purchased twenty-five acres of land there in 1767, and later purchased several other small tracts adjoining. He died in the winter of 1818-19, leaving four sons: Benjamin, Jacob, Henry, and Adam; and one daughter, Susanna.

Adam Renner, youngest son of Jacob, learned the trade of a blacksmith with his father, and in 1800 purchased a farm of fifty acres in Hilltown township, near the line of Rockhill, but sold twenty acres thereof two years later. He followed his trade at that place until his death in 1823. He married Elizabeth _______, and they were the parents of ten children, viz,: Henry, also a blacksmith in Hilltown; Mary; Elizabeth, who became the wife of George King; Hannah, who married Nathan Thomas; Sarah, who married John Nace; Samuel; Catharine, who married Jacob Trollinger; Enos; John and Lydia.

John Renner, ninth child of Adam and Elizabeth Renner, was born in Hilltown township, Bucks county, in 1814. He was but nine years of age at the death of his father, and John Kramer was appointed his guardian. He received a meager education, and early in life learned the trade of a mason, which he followed until fifty-five years of age, and then purchased a farm in Hilltown, upon which he lived for a number of years, and then sold it and removed to Franconia township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, where he still resides. He married Catharine Kramar, who bore him nine children: Sarah, Simon, William, Elizabeth, Noah, Amanda, James, John and Catharine. His wife Catharine dying he married (second) Susanna Harr, a widow, her maiden name being Frantz, by whom he has two children, Frank and Ella.

WILLIAM RENNER was born in Rockhill township, and was reared in the township of Bedminster. At the age of sixteen years he came to Hilltown township, where he was employed for three years. In 1862, at the age of nineteen years, he enlisted in Company I, One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and served throughout the war in the Pennsylvania cavalry, serving under Sheridan in his many raids, and, though in numerous engagements, came out without a scratch. He was mustered out at Harrisburg in 1865, and returning to Bucks county, followed farming and carpentering for three years, and in 1868 came to Perkasie and was employed in the mill of A. H. Hendricks, at South Perkasie, for three years and for two years with Mr. Moyer at the same business. In 1874 he started the feed and hay business at Perkasie, and has been in that business ever since. Mr. Renner has always taken an active interest in all that pertained to the interest of the town, filling the position of school director for a number of years, and also serving in other local positions. He is president of the Bridgetown and Blooming Glen turnpike, and associated with other local enterprises. He is a member of Blooming Glen Mennonite church. Mr. Renner married, in 1869, Sarah Hunsicker, daughter of Abraham and Catherine (Moyer) Hunsicker, who is deceased. Their only child is also deceased.