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| Abraham Snow Myers |
I enjoyed a visit last week with Myers cousins who share my interest in family history and, quite unintentionally, imposed a load of guilt. Although I know many of the answers to family history puzzles, and have the filing cabinets full of stuff to prove it, I'm terrible about organizing, writing coherent narratives and filling in the blanks in the "family tree" at Ancestry.com --- a subscription service I've been engaged in a long-term love-hate relationship with.
So I'm going to try --- again --- to redeem myself genealogically and spend a little time filling in the blanks. This is an example, a narrative summary of the life of my uncle, Abraham Snow Myers, who was born in Pennsylvania, lived in Lucas and Wayne counties and died at Allerton during 1917. My great-grandfather, Daniel Myers, was his younger brother.
Both were sons of Jacob Myers, who arrived in Benton Township, Lucas County, during 1867 after a career as a railroad contractor in western Pennsylvania, acquired a substantial amount of land and amused himself, among other ways, by running off to Arizona to prospect for silver. Jacob had two children by his first marriage --- Sarah (Myers) Houck and Abraham Snow; and eight by his second, to Harriet Dick --- Elizabeth Adella (Myers) Simpson, Susan Harriet (Myers) Hickle, Phoebe (Myers) Gookin, Mary (Myers) Gookin, Catherine (Myers) Parsons, Daniel Myers, Anna Clarissa (Myers) Dulin/Angell and Adalaide (Myers) Slattery/Scovel. There also was an adopted son, Ishmel, taken from the Lucas County Poor Farm to raise by Jacob and Harriet during Jacob's tenure as a Lucas County supervisor.
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NARRATIVE: ABRAHAM SNOW MYERS
By Frank D. Myers
Abraham Snow Myers, eldest son of Jacob Myers by his first wife, was born 11 June 1836, near New Florence in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Nothing really is known of his mother other than her maiden name, Snow. If family stories can be relied upon, she drowned ca. 1838-40 in a canal near the family home leaving both Abraham S. and his sister, Sarah, motherless. The late Minnie (Myers) Johnson, in telling this story, said that both Sarah and Abraham witnessed the drowning.
Jacob married Harriet Dick as his second wife during 1842 and in 1850, when the federal census of Westmoreland County was taken, Abraham, age 13, was living with the Isaac Myers family, next door to his father's household in St. Clair Township. Isaac may (or may not) have been an uncle.
By 1860, Abraham had rejoined his own family and was listed, age given as 21, as a resident of Jacob Myers's St. Clair Township family. I believe that his occupation is given as "farm hand," but that portion of the census entry is so badly faded that one can't be sure.
There is no indication that Abraham served in the military during the Civil War. His 1917 obituary stated that instead "he acted as an engineer to carry soldiers to the front." Because his father and uncles were railroad contractors, it's very likely that Abraham was involved in this type of work before the war.
After the war, Abraham accompanied his family in 1867 to Benton Township, Lucas County, Iowa --- where unlike the hilly and wooded area he had known as a child and young man, the prairie must have seemed endless. When the 1870 census was taken, he was enumerated, age 32, as a member of his father's household, occupation given as farmer.
Abraham acquired a substantial amount of land immediately south of that owned by his father, in Section 27 of Benton Township, and he developed with house, barn and other outbuildings what would be known later as the Chester Poush farmstead, south of Myers School on the New York Road. At the time of his death, during 1917, Abraham still owned nearly 400 acres in Sections 27, 34 and 35. Much if not all of this land had been owned originally by his father.
On 28 May 1871, when he was nearly 35, Abraham married Margaret Adaline Keaton, also about 35, in Allerton, Wayne County. The couple probably met while she was teaching school in Lucas County. A native of Gallia County, Ohio, Margaret seems to have been home-based with her sister and brother-in-law, Porter M. and Mary A. (Keaton) Phillips, in Allerton, where her sister, Melissa Caroline Keaton, also lived.
Abraham and Margaret settled down on their farm in Benton Township, where they lived for more than 20 years in a neighborhood where nearly everyone was related in some manner to the Myers family, the school was called Myers and the neighborhood church, Mt. Carmel Evengelical, was built on Myers land.
Margaret's own family had been scattered by the death of her parents, Sarah and Gabriel Keaton, during 1857 and 1862 respectively, while living near Tolono in Champagne County, Illinois. She was the eldest child and it seems likely that the responsibility for holding the family together may have fallen heavily upon her shoulders.
About 1893, Abraham and Margaret decided to move from Benton Township to Allerton. Her health may have begun to fail by this time and it is possible that the desire to live nearer to her sisters may have been a factor. But Allerton was a very promising town at the time, her brother-in-law, Porter Phllips, was a successful general merchant there and Abraham, a good businessman, may also have recognized an opportunity when he saw it. The couple held onto their Lucas County, property, however, and it was rented out.
Family stories suggest that Abraham acquired and operated a lumber yard in Allerton although Wayne County census entries record him, 1900-1910, as "farmer," then "retired." During November of 1894, according to a report in The Corydon Democrat, he constructed a fine new home in Allerton for Margaret.
Sadly, she died just two months later of tuberculosis, on Jan. 6, 1895. Following funeral services at the house, burial was made in the Allerton Cemetery, northeast of town, and Abraham erected an impressive granite monument there in her memory.
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| Find A Grave photo |
Abraham, now in his late 50s, continued to live in Allerton and, for a time, his widowed youngest half-sister sister, Adalaide (Myers) Slattery, 28 years his junior, moved from her farm in Benton Township with son, Fremont, to keep house for him --- eventually moving on to Idaho after her second marriage, to Harry Scovel, during October of 1896.
At some point during the late 1880s or early 1890s, a young bachelor farmer named Henry Wohlgemuth had moved from Tazewell County, Illinois, to land he had purchased between Corydon and Allerton, bringing along his younger sister, Anna, to keep house for him. Both were children of Philip Wohlgemuth, a blacksmith native to Germany, and his wife, Katherine, of Washington, the Tazewell County seat. There were two other younger children in this family, Katherine Jr., or Kate, and Emma. Of the four children, only Anna would marry.
Abraham and Anna became acquainted and eventually decided to marry, tying the knot on May 4, 1898, at her parents' home in Washington, Illinois. Anna, age 36, was some 26 years her bridegroom's junior (he now was 62) but their relationship seems to have been an amicable one.
Their only child, Evelyn Maude, was born in Allerton on 11 July 1902, according to Wayne County birth records. Her mother was 40 at the time and her father, age 66.
Abraham, Anna and Maude seem to have lived comfortably in Allerton for the next 15 years, but during the fall of 1917 he became critically ill and died eight weeks later, on 30 November. Here's his obituary as published in The Allerton News of 6 December 1917:
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"Abraham S. Myers was born June 11, 1836, in West Moreland (Westmoreland) county, Pa., where he grew to manhood. He then moved west to Iowa, which was a frontier state at that time. He, with his parents, settled in Lucas county, but (Abraham) moved to Allerton in 1893, where he resided until the time of his death, Nov. 30, 1817 (sic; should be 1917).
"During the Civil War he acted as engineer to carry soldiers to the front.
"In 1897 (actually 1898) he was united in marriage to Miss Anna E. Wohlgemuth, of Washington, Ill. To this union one daughter, Evelyn, was born.
"Mr. Myers has had many serious accidents which he could not have survived had it not been for his iron constitution.
"For many years he had been a member of the Masonic Order in good standing.
"The deceased leaves to mourn their loss a wife, daughter, five sisters and one brother, besides a host of friends. The sisters are Mrs. Thos. Gookin and Mrs. Mary Gookin, of Chariton, Anna Angle and Elizabeth Simpson, of Montana, and Mrs. Scoville, of Caldwell, Idaho. The brother is Dan Myers, of Lucas county, Iowa.
"In Mr. Myers' last illness he suffered intensely for about 8 weeks. Death came as a sweet release from pain.
"The funeral services were held at the home, Sunday afternoon at two o'clock. Walter Girdner, pastor of the Christian church, preached the funeral sermon, after which the Masonic Lodge took charge of the service. Dr. Read conducted the music. Interment was made in the Allerton cemetery."
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Abraham left a substantial estate, including approximately 400 acres in Lucas County as well as lots in and land near Allerton. One third was left outright to Anna; the balance left in trust for their daughter, Evelyn, to be turned over to her when she reached the age of 21.
Anna and Evelyn continued to live together in Allerton until Evelyn went away to college, reportedly in Chicago. She then taught school for a time, but on 28 April 1923 in Centerville married a young man from Brazil (the Appanoose County village, not the country), John Joseph Bates. They became the parents of two daughters, Gretchen and Louise, and eventually moved to Detroit.
Anna continued to make her home in Allerton until at least 1940 when she was enumerated in the federal census at age 76. She reportedly died during 1952 and some online sources give the place as Detroit, where Evelyn and her family were living at the time.
The graves of both Anna and Abraham in the Allerton Cemetery were unmarked for many years, but during the latter part of the 20th century their descendants placed the the current stone for "Annie E." and "Abe" Myers, just north of the rather grand stone Abraham had erected in memory of his first wife, Margaret, soon after her 1895 death.
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| Find A Grave photo |
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