George Monroe Kershner, Civil War captain from Hagerstown
George Monroe Kershner, born near Hagerstown, was a captain with Company G, First Maryland Cavalry, on the Union side during the Civil War.
Many of his descendants settled in Berkeley County.
When the conflict broke out, he was a middle-aged husband and father, working as a house plasterer in Clear Spring, Maryland.
He mustered out at Harper's Ferry and moved with his family to Martinsburg after the war. There, he resumed his profession as a house plasterer.
He was 58 when his wife died.
Later in life, as an elderly widow, he moved to Pennsylvania to live with his son Charles and family. He died there in 1901 at age 80 and was buried there.
Obituary for George M. Kershner, The Fulton County News, 4 Apr 1901
His firstborn Isabella, like her mother, died in her mid-50s. She was a wife and mother in Indian Spring who, in her 40s, had to bury her 16-year-old daughter. (She was a great-great-grandmother of Bill Moore, who runs the Historic Hedgesville Facebook group.)
His eldest son George Jr. remained in Martinsburg, and followed in his father’s footsteps as a house plasterer.