He told his grandchildren and great-grandchildren that he remembered when he was very young that one of his father's brothers stopped to visit on his way back home to Ohio after fighting in the War of 1812. That brother was probably John Minteer. Another possible brother, or at least a cousin, was Joseph Minteer. Other likely cousins were William Minteer (b.abt.1772), father of William M Minteer, Joseph P Minteer, and at least five other children. Then there was another likely cousin, another William Minteer (b.1771 in PA, d.1852 in KY), grandfather of at least nine grandchildren, including Lottie Coyle, with whom Josephine Minteer Dickinson corresponded. They and others tried for several generations to find the precise connection between the PA, OH, MO, IA, and KY Minteers, but with no success.
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James Minteer was my great-great-great-grandfather. His niece, Josephine Minteer Dickinson, who wrote the book "The Minteers As I Have Known Them", recorded that James and his older brother, Alexander, were born in Venango County. She claimed they lived "about forty miles north" near Scrubgrass Creek, Tionesta, and Tidiote. However, there is no Scrubgrass Creek that far north. But there is one north of Butler, and a Scrubgrass Township there in Venango County, which is the area where I suspect they may have lived before coming south a couple days' journey to the place they settled in Armstrong County. (His son Joseph's death certificates states that his father, James, was born near Franklin, PA, which is not far from Scrubgrass Township in Venango County.)

From the memoirs of Frank Dumm:

"The day [Samuel] was born his mother died at the age of 29 years. This left James Minteer (Grandfather Minteer) with a family of five children, counting his nephew, "Cousin James". His sister, Aunt Mary Rayburn, took the baby, Samuel, and kept him until he was over a year old. She had a baby of about the same age and raised them as twins. Two of Grandfather's other sisters, Betty and Nancy Minteer, not yet married, and his brother Alex's widow, Mrs. Nancy Minteer, kept house for him at different times for about three or four years, then he married Jane Clark. She is the one we knew and loved as "Grandmother Minteer". She proved an excellent step-mother for the five little motherless children who welcomed her as their new mother. I have heard my mother, Uncle John and Uncle James all say that their own mother could not have been any better to them than their step-mother was. Jane Clark had several brothers: William, John, Nicholas, and Samuel Clark. The Leila Clark who married Curtis Minteer was a daughter of Samuel Clark."

From "The Minteers As I Have Known Them":

"James Minteer was a large man and always enjoyed good health. He learned the carpenter trade at the age of eighteen and went to Pittsburgh where he worked on some of the important buildings being constructed in the 1820s. When he went home he walked the forty miles each way. Probably these trips were made more frequent by his anxiety to visit his sweetheart, Elizabeth Young, who lived in a large double log house about one mile south of Worthington. After his marriage he took a tract of timber land in Jefferson County to be near his brother, Alexander. After the tragic death of this brother, they returned to the Young farm about 1833 with their baby son, John Young, who was always known as Young or J.Y. It must have been a large and busy household. James Minteer was a frequent visitor in our home. He seemed to feel a great responsibility for my mother and her children when my father's death left her a widow with six children aged from twenty-two years to nine months. He was very hard of hearing and talked a great deal. It is from listening to these talks he had with Mother that I have the memory of many of these things that I record."

(On October 21, 2012 I found William Minter listed among the residents of Irwin Township, Venango County, in 1805. Scrubgrass Township was formed from Irwin in 1806, and it was not long after that that the family moved south to Armstrong County.)

From the time James came with his parents and older brother to the "original Minteer place" on the west side of Buffalo Creek, except for the year or so that he lived on his timber land in Jefferson County (plus the weeks spent in Pittsburgh working as a carpenter) he lived his whole life within a mile or so of that spot--there until he married Elizabeth Young, then across Buffalo Creek on the 117 acres or so that was left to him in his father-in-law's will.