The first member of this numerous and prominent Westmoreland County [family] to settle in the Ligonier Valley was Mathias Marker and the date was prior to 1800. Mathias Marker was a farmer - born near Richmond, Virginia. He moved from that locality to Maryland, living for a time near Hagerstown. He is listed as a taxpayer in Bedford Co., Pa in 1790 census and it is not know just when he moved to Westmoreland County. We have been unable to find a record of his enlistment in Revolutionary War. It is presumed he enlisted in Virginia and that the record was burned when Richmond was burned during the Civil War. The D. A. R. registered my supplemental line from proofs of his Revolutionary service in a paper published at Greensburg, Pennsylvania in 1818 that gave a list of Revolutionary soldiers residing at that time in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and from the fact that his grave has a Revolutionary War marker. He is buried at Pleasant Grove Church yard.

His farm was about four miles south of Ligonier, Pennsylvania on the road leading to Pleasant Grove. He and his family were members of the Reformed Church (German Lutheran) - at Ligonier. My father, James Marker, was born on this farm. I have been unable to find a record of Mathias Marker’s marriage or any data or history of the Countryman family - Mathias Marker’s wife, Margretta Countryman, is buried beside him.

In 1834 my father’s oldest sister, Elizabeth, married Isaac Cavin. They went at once to live in Indiana. They made the journey with two horses, one carrying all their worldly goods in a pack saddle and my aunt and uncle taking turns walking or riding he other horse. There were no roads to enable them to use a wagon. Arriving at their destination in Noble County, my uncle founded the new town and gave it the name of the old home town in Pennsylvania - Ligonier. In later years all the brothers and sisters of Elizabeth [Marker] Cavin came west and settled near Ligonier, Indiana. After great-grandfather, Mathias Marker, passed away, grandfather and grandmother, George and Mary McDowell Marker moved to Ligonier, Indiana, where they spent the later years of their lives and are buried in Salem Cemetery, near Ligonier.

My father and mother, James and Mary Ann Larimer Marker were married in Pleasant Grove Church, about seven miles south of Ligonier, Pennsylvania, April 2, 1846. They journeyed at once to Erie, Pennsylvania, going by stage coach. From Erie they went by boat to Toledo, Ohio, where they were met by Uncle Isaac Cavin and taken to his home at Ligonier. My father purchased a farm there in Noble County on what was know as the Hawpatch. It was a very desirable farming country by the settlers suffered greatly from malaria, or ague, being ill much of the time. During their residence there, my two sister Celestia and Mary, were born.

In the spring of 1852, accompanied by Henry and Margaret [Marker] Drum, the latter my father’s sister, they moved to Wisconsin. They traveled by covered wagon and I remember hearing father tell they were mired down in mud in the streets of Chicago, at that time but a small village on the shore of Lake Michigan.

They resided in Wisconsin, near Viroqua in Vernon County until the fall of 1875. On the old farm between Springville and Viroqua their other children were born and Mary, George and Albert died and were buried in Springville cemetery.

I very distinctly remember the journey to Nebraska in October, 1875. My brother Edward, his wife Mary, and my brothers-in- law, Cassius Pulver and Dean Richards, drove through in covered wagons, bringing my father and mother, sister Celestia Pulver and her two daughters, Myrtle and Guinnie, sister Frances Richards and h daughters, Bertha, Dartha, Marietta and me as far as DeSoto. There we took the train for Nebraska. We came on the Northeastern R. R. via Clinton, spent one night at Council Bluffs and left the train at Columbus, Nebraska, October 1875. At Columbus father found two farmers, Harmon Beuse and Andrew Davis, from Polk County with their teams and wagons whom he hired to bring us to Osceola. We came first to the home of our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Strang, who had been our neighbors in Wisconsin.

In a few days my father bought a farm four miles north of Osceola, and later Dean Richards and sister Frances bought the farm a mile east of father's, known as Hard-Scrabble Farm, where they have since resided. On July 6, 1876, my oldest sister, Celestia Pulver, passed away, leaving her two small daughters. Celestia was among the first to be buried in Osceola cemetery.

During the year that followed my mother cared for Myrtle and Guinnie and on July 5, 1877, Guinnie died. Cassius soon married again but Myrtle lived in our home most of the time until her marriage and has always seemed more like a sister than a niece to me.

In 1881 my father homesteaded near O’Neill, Nebraska, and in the autumn of 1883 we moved there. There we experienced all the hardships and inconveniences of pioneering and in November 1885 my mother died and father passed away in October 1886. They a buried in Lambert cemetery about 15 miles east of O’Neill, Nebraska.

The sweetest memory of my life is the memory of my mother. Her ideals, her natural refinement, he wholesome teachings in moral and religious ways have been a safeguard to me all my fe, while my father’s sturdy honesty, his disdain of anything underhanded or unfair, his respect for the rights and tolerance of the opinions of others have been as a guiding light for me all along life’s journey. They were pioneers in three states and only brave, courageous, sturdy characters could endure as pioneers. Nothing could shake their faith in the “Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man,” and they left behind them a record of honor and honesty of which their descendants may well be proud.

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