Jonathan Friend was the second child of Andrew Coleman Friend and Sarah Nancy Harden. Jonathan was the great grandson of “Old” John Friend, founder of Friendsville, MD and patriarch of the Garrett County Friend Family. Jonathan was born in Ohio in 1820 and would move back to Allegany (Garrett) County with his parents sometime before 1830. Jonathan married Lydia Collins on March 11, 1843 and with their children lived in and around on a plot of land own as Grim’s Point located Southwest of present Friendsville, MD. Evelyn Guard Olsen described Jonathan in her book “Indian Blood” as:
Jonathan Friend was one who, as Burroughs said, “burned incense to spring.” His nickname, dubbed him by his Friend cousins, was “Sugar Joe,” although he was “Jot” or “Jottie” to his family. As he sent spirals of smoke wreathing up from the stone arch in his sugar shed, his absorption in his work proved that a realistic touch had been shown in naming him “Sugar Joe”. Getting rich on manufacture of maple sugar, while everyone around had their “sugars” and “boiling off kettles,” was somewhat like shooting at the stars, but then, Jonathan was a naturalist.
Jonathan’s niece Laura Belle Collins described Jonathan and his wife Lydia as:
one of the happiest couples you ever saw.
We have attempted to outline the recorded history of Jonathan Friend and his family. Personal histories, birth certificates, death certificates, photographs, lands deed, wills, military records and US Census records have been included in this text. It is our goal to preserve the family history of this family before it is lost to time. As with our previous books on the Friend family, we have spent countless hours constructing this family history from these multiple recorded sources. This project began as a book about Andrew Coleman Friend (Jonathan Friend’s father) and was eventually separated into three books due to the large volume of information accumulated during our research. The three books focus on Andrew Coleman Friend , Joab Jonah Friend (Jonathan’s brother) and Jonathan “Sugar Joe” Friend. Jonathan, Joab and their families are briefly outlined in the Andrew Coleman Friend book. Although thoroughly checked, there may be unintentional errors, for which we truly apologize. We openly encourage additionally information and corrections to this text.