I've spent way too much time this week slaving over a hot computer, sorting out family history details. In order to at least have something to show for the effort, I finished up this little biographical sketch of my great-great-grandmother, Harriet (Dick) Myers. So here it is:
HARRIET (DICK) MYERS, DAUGHTER OF DANIEL & SARAH DICK
SPOUSE OF JACOB HILL MYERS
By Frank D. Myers
BORN: 16 March 1820, Baltimore County, Maryland
Married Jacob Hill Myers 1842 in Cambria or Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania
DIED: 16 February 1906, Benton Township, Lucas County, Iowa
BURIED: Salem Cemetery, Benton Township, Lucas County, Iowa
Harriet was the first child of Daniel and Sarah (Leach) Dick, born on 16 March 1820 in Baltimore County, Maryland, a year and three months after their December, 1818, wedding at Baltimore’s Zion Lutheran Church. Her younger brother, James, was born during 1823 in Baltimore County and soon after his birth their mother, Sarah Dick, died.
Harriet would have been 6 and her brother, 3, when their father married as his second wife Susanna Lightner during August of 1826 in Hopewell Township, York County, Pennsylvania --- due north of Baltimore city.
The family was living in Hopewell Township when the 1830 federal census was taken, but in 1832 --- when Harriet was 12 --- moved west to Cambria County, Pennsylvania, where a new home was established at Dick's Lock on the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal near the Conemaugh River and Johnstown.
The 1840 census-taker found the Dick family living there next-door to a three-person household (two males age 20-30 and a female, age 15-20) headed by Jacob “Myres,” almost certainly the Jacob Myers she would marry two years later.
Jacob, born 30 June 1811 just downriver in Westmoreland County, had married about 1834 a Miss Snow and they had produced three children, Sarah A, born 27 May 1835; Abraham Snow, born 11 June 1837; and George, born 2 September 1838. George apparently died young.
According to family stories, Jacob’s first wife drowned in the canal near their home, most likely not long after giving birth to George. Some of her children reportedly witnessed her death. It seems likely that the death occurred here, in Conemaugh Township, Cambria County.
Jacob and his brothers made their living initially as builders of and as boatmen on the canal, then as builders of the Allegheny Portage Railroad and finally as contractors during construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
After their mother's death, Jacob’s children probably were sent to Westmoreland County to live with his family; the 1840 household may have consisted of Jacob, a brother and --- perhaps --- a sister who kept house for them.
Whatever the case, Harriet and Jacob were married during 1842, most likely in Conemaugh County although no record of the marriage ever has been found. Pennsylvania had no record-keeping system for marriages at this time.
Harriet and Jacob established their home downriver from Johnstown in the far northeast corner of Westmoreland County, then part of Fairfield Township, later St. Clair. This was an area populated by many Myers and Hill kinfolk, north of what now is New Florence (not founded until the 1860s) and south of Ninevah Station, now Seward.
While living here, Harriet gave birth to 10 children, two of whom died young and whose names have been lost. The surviving children were Elizabeth (born 1842), Susan (born 1844), Phoebe (born 1847), Mary (born 1849), Catherine (born 1851), Daniel (born 1856), Anna Clarissa (born 1859) and Adalaide (born 1864).
Jacob had prospered mightily as a railroad bridge contractor, among other pursuits, in the years prior to the Civil War, but once the war ended looked west for opportunity. The land around New Florence was not suited for large-scale agriculture and that was his principal interest once the war had ended, although he retained a stake in family operations in Westmoreland County continued by his bachelor brother, George Myers, and sister, Elizabeth Myers.
It’s not exactly clear why Harriet and Jacob chose Lucas County, Iowa, but it may have been upon the recommendation of cousins, Josiah and Margaret (Pershing) Hill, who had moved from Westmoreland County to Lucas County during 1856 and settled in Benton Township.
Whatever the case, Jacob purchased land in Benton Township immediately after the war and ca. 1867, the family moved. The move included the seven children who remained at home as well as Abraham, Jacob’s son by his first marriage. His daughter from that marriage, Sarah, and her husband, Charles W. Houck, soon joined them; as did Jacob’s and Harriet’s daughter, Elizabeth, who had married Prof. Joseph P. Simpson in Pennsylvania. Abraham Myers and the Houcks purchased farms near those of Jacob and Harriet. The Simpsons located in Chariton, where Joseph established an academy.
During 1870, the original house on the Myers farm was replaced by what was, for that day and age, the grandest frame house in that part of the county. The Myers School was built just across the road to the south and the family church, Mt. Carmel, during 1882 on Myers land just to the east.
As other children married, they settled on farms adjoining or near the parents’ homestead --- Susan to John Hickle, Phoebe to Thomas Gookin, Mary to Clarke Gookin, Catherine to James Parsons and Daniel, to Mary Belle Redlingshafer.
During 1873, when Jacob Myers was serving as county supervisor, he and Harriet took into their home a 7-year-old boy named Ishmel Ward, who had been abandoned by his mother at the Lucas County Poor Farm. Ishmel took the surname “Myers” and was raised as one of their own.
Jacob Myers, age 72 and about 10 years older than Harriet, died as the result of a stroke on May 27, 1883, and was buried in Salem Cemetery, three and a half miles north of the Myers settlement on the New York Road.
Ishmel then married Elma Redlingshafer and they moved in with Harriet while he farmed in partnership with my great-grandfather, Daniel Myers.
That move was in part responsible, I suppose, for a major disaster on July 5, 1900. One of Ishmel’s and Elma’s sons, playing with firecrackers left over from the day before, set the house afire. The menfolk all were in the fields putting up hay at the time, so my great-grandmother, Mary Belle --- whose home was just across the road --- dispatched my great-aunt, Minnie (Myers) Johnson, to fetch them while she and Elma attempted to salvage a few items from the house.
There was little to be done, however, and according to family stories the salvage effort was complicated by a considerable supply of ammunition stored in the house. By the time the men arrived, the fire was beyond control. Great-aunt Minnie, several times in my hearing, expressed her regret --- not necessarily that the house burned but that the men made her stay in the fields with the teams of horses and mules not used for transportation back to the farmstead and she missed the show.
After that, a smaller house was moved to the site of the burned one and Harriet lived out the remainder of her years there --- until her passing on Feb. 16, 1906, a month shy of her 86th birthday. She was buried beside Jacob in the Salem Cemetery.
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