30 Dec 2009

Eylar Selected Documents

Published Book

A History of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers, 1900

pp. 561-562

Joseph Eyler,
the pioneer, was born in the Kingdom of Wurtemburg, Germany, September 22, 1759. He was a son of George and Catherine Eyler who lived and died in that country. In 1777 he ran away from home to escape service in the army, and after walking 800 miles to the coast, shipped for the United States, arriving at Baltimore in the autumn of that year. From that time until the period of his marriage little is known of him except that he was engaged as a wagoner, and accumulated enough to own a four-horse team and a "Cannestoga" of his own. In 1787 he married Mary Ann Rosemiller, a daughter of John George Rosemiller, living in the vicinity of Philadelphia. The Rosemillers were wealthy Tories, and objected to their daughter's marrying the unknown and poor wagoner; an elopement followed, and Mary Ann Rosemiller became Mary Ann Eyler. However, John George Rosemiller had other daughters "Ann" to cheer his declining years. They were Ann, Rose Ann, Catherine Ann, Barbara Ann, Elizabeth Ann, Julia Ann, Mary Ann, who eloped with Eyler, and a son named John George Lewis. The breach in the domestic life of the Rosemillers made by the clandestine marriage of Mary Ann remained until her death. Her sisters had married well, and they never lost the opportunity to remind her of the fact, so that she and her husband shortly after the birth of their first child, the late Judge Joseph Eyler, of Adams County, removed to Bedford, Pennsylvania, then a frontier town from which goods were distributed to the settlements in western Virginia and Kentucky. It was a point where the young wagoner found ready employment. In 1795, Joseph Eyler and his little family, in company with others, came down the Ohio River by keel-boat and landed at the "Three Islands" where Nathaniel Massie had founded the town of Manchester. Eyler tended a patch of corn on the lower island that summer, and the following winter built a cabin on a tract of three hundred acres purchased near Killinstown. The next year, James B. Finley passed over Tod's old trace to the new settlement at Chillicothe and noted the fact that there was a "cabin near the present site of West Union, built by Mr. Oiler, but no one was living in it." Eyler's original tract is now owned by Sandy Craigmile, John Crawford, and Samuel McFeeters. Joseph Eyler moved into his cabin in the year 1796. He then had four small children, Joseph, Mary, Sarah and Catherine, and there were born here John, Samuel, Martin, Henry, David, Lewis, Gerorge, and Elizabeth. Of these, Samuel, Martin, David, Lewis, and George died in childhood and are buried at Killinstown. He cleared away the forest and soon possessed one of the best farms in that portion of the country. He was industrious and economical and accumulated considerable wealth for those times. He was frequently called on to serve in local official positions such as "lister" of property, being a man of good judgment and a great deal of common sense. From Killinstown he moved to a farm near Winchester, on what is now known as the "Massie Farm." He resided there a few years and then bought a farm near Berryville, in Highland County, where he conducted a distillery. He remained there until 1834, when he disposed of his property and removed to Brown County, on a farm now owned by his grandson, Carey C. Eyler, north of the village of Fincastle. Here he died July 29, 1839, and was buried in the Wilson cemetery about one mile east of the village of Fincastle. His wife survived until March 13, 1841. In personal appearance Joseph Eyler was strikingly peculiar. He was five feet, five inches in height and weighed over three hundred pounds. His complexion was very fair, hair dark, and eyes steel blue. He spoke English tolerably well, but preferred to use his native language when possible to do so. His household language, until his family was grown, was the German, and he always read and prayed in that tongue. It was the rule in his household to read a portion of God's Holy Word every evening, followed with a simple family worship in the way of prayer. A strong trait of Joseph Eyler was his love of good horses, of which he always kept a number of the "largest and fattest." In pleasant weather he would turn them out to pasture, and as they galloped over the fields they fairly shook the earth. It was a common remark among his neighbors when it thundered, that "Joe Eyler's horses were having a romp."

Published Book

Genealogical and Biographical Record of North-Eastern Kansas, 1900

Vol II, pp. 475-476

ARON [sic] RANDOLPH EYLAR.
The self-made man is very much in evidence in Kansas, a state in the making and development of which "many men of many minds" have had a part. Doniphan county has had its full proportion of these hustling, useful and successful citizens and one of the most prominent of them is the man whose name is the title of this notice.
Aron Randolph Eylar, a successful farmer of Union township, Doniphan county, Kansas, is a son of Joseph Eylar, whose memory is revered by the old residents of Winchester, Adams county, Ohio, and a younger brother of James Monroe Eylar, a biographical sketch of whom is presented in this work. Joseph Eylar was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1786 [later research shows Bucks Co., PA in 1789, but he lived in Maryland for a time], and died at Winchester, Ohio, in 1851, aged sixty-five years. He was a soldier in defense of his country in our last war with England. In 1818 he located at Winchester, Ohio, where he put a tannery in operation and rose to business and political prominence. He was a leader of the local Democracy and served with distinction as an associate justice of the judicial district of which Adams county formed a part. Joseph Eylar's father, with his brother, John, came early from Germany to Maryland [Pennsylvania], where he founded a home. His mother was a Miss Rosemiller, a member of a family conspicuous in the American Revolution, and they are both buried in the old graveyard in Fincastle, Ohio.
On his mother's side, Aron Randolph Eylar, who was born in Adams county, Ohio, March 21, 1847, is connected with the Fentons. Elizabeth Fenton, his mother [second wife of Joseph Eylar], was a daughter of John Fenton, born in Kentucky [Pennsylvania], whose [grand]father was Jerry Fenton [his father was Samuel]. The last named went into Ohio, about the time it became a state and died there on his new farm soon after his settlement. The children of Joseph and Elizabeth (Fenton) Eylar were: Samuel, who lives near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; James M., of Union township, Doniphan county, Kansas; Elizabeth, the wife of F.T. Liggett, of Ripley, Ohio; Emeline, who married Albertus McMeekin, of Columbus Ohio; Aron Randolph, of Union township, Doniphan county, Kansas, and Charles, of Oklahoma. For his second [first] wife Joseph Eylar married Elizabeth Fenton, a relative of his first [second] wife. Of their nine children not one survives. Three of their daughters left families. These were: Ruth, who married Colonel J.R. Cockrell; Mary, who married Richard Moore, and Sallie Ann, who married Samuel McNown.
The subject of this notice began the stern battle of life for himself before he attained his majority. He worked two years on a farm by the month and after that was profitably employed until the spring of 1873, when he went to Kansas and located in Doniphan county. His means were limited and for nine years he worked rented land in Wolf River township. In 1882 he removed to Union township and bought a farm of seventy acres on Wolf river of Thomas Robbins. He has since added thirty acres to the place, making it a farm of one hundred acres, and he has so assiduously devoted himself to its development and improvement that he now has a productive and attractive country place and a home which, considering its location and environments, is a model from every point of view.
Mr. Eylar is a Democrat and a citizen of much public spirit. He was married, December 17, 1872, to Miss Matilda Horner, a daughter of Ephraim Horner. Mr. Horner was from the state of Pennsylvania and his wife was Drusilla Swearingen, who bore him children as follows: Matilda; Nancy, who is dead; William L., of Highland county, Ohio; John T., of Adams county, same state; Calvin E., of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Laura, wife of Richard Lenter, of Adams county, already mentioned. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Eylar are named Calvin Leroy, Lydia [Lida] Elizabeth and Alfred Louis.

Vol III, pp. 708-710

JAMES MONROE EYLAR.
The American progenitor of the family of Eylars, of which James Monroe and Aaron Randolph Eylar, of Eden, Doniphan county, Kansas, are worthy representatives, was one of the name who, with his brother John, emigrated from Germany to Maryland [Pennsylvania], where the grandfather of James M. and Aaron R. Eylar married a woman of the Rosemiller family, of Revolutionary note. John [Joseph Sr.] Eylar and his wife lie buried side by side at Fincastle, Ohio. Their son, Joseph Eylar, father of the two prominent residents of Doniphan county above mentioned, was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1876, [later research shows Bucks Co., PA in 1789] and died in Adams county, Ohio, in 1851. He served the United States in the army in the war of 1812, moved to Ohio in 1818, established a tannery at Winchester and built up a large and profitable business. He was a prominent Democrat and was elected to the office of associate justice of the district in which he lived. Joseph Eylar was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Fenton, a native of Kentucky and granddaughter of Jerry Fenton, who was a pioneer in Ohio about the time it became a state and died there soon afterward on his new farm. The children of Joseph and Elizabeth (Fenton) Eylar were: Samuel, who lives near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; James M., of Union township, Doniphan county, Kansas; Elizabeth, wife of F.T. Liggett, of Ripley, Ohio; Emeline, who married Alburtus McMeekin, of Columbus, Ohio; Aaron Randolph, of Union township, Doniphan county, Kansas; and Charles, of Oklahoma.[These are the children of the second wife.] For his second wife Joseph Eylar married Elizabeth Fenton, a relative of his first wife. Of their nine children not one survives. Those who left families were: Ruth, who married Colonel J.R. Cockrell; Mary, who married Richard Moore; and Mrs. Sallie Ann McNown. [These are children of the first wife.] James Monroe Eylar, born in Adams county, Ohio, June 3, 1838, spent his boyhood and youth at Winchester, Ohio, and acquired a good English education in the village schools. He went to Kansas in 1854 and settled on a claim near Doniphan to secure it for his uncle. Mr. Fenton, who lived near Rushville, Missouri. He made the journey from Cincinnati to St. Louis on the steamer Castle Garden and from St. Louis to Atchison on the steamer Honduras. He disembarked at George William's landing, on the Missouri river, opposite Atchison, in September of the year mentioned, and corroborates the usual statement that at that time things about there had a blank and forbidding appearance and that many of the men he encountered there and elsewhere on the way from Ohio to Kansas were characteristically "wild and woolly." He went to his destination on what is now the Langdon farm and during the succeeding three years "played farmer" to some practical purpose. Of his few neighbors in that early period only William Lancaster remains to tell the story of the border days in that part of Doniphan county. In 1857 Mr. Eylar went back to his native county in Ohio and made his home there during the succeeding eight years, which comprised the period of the civil war. He entered the service of the United States government, in 1863, as a teamster in the quartermaster's department, and the command to which he was attached traversed the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, and it was the fortune of Mr. Eylar to be present at the siege of Knoxville. After two years' service, which ended with the cessation of hostilities, he was discharged, and he then located in Buchanan county, Missouri, where he farmed successfully until 1881, when he a second time went to Doniphan county, Kansas, this time to better his own fortunes. Immediately after his arrival in the county, in 1881, Mr. Eylar bought his present farm of one hundred and sixty acres, which he has since improved greatly in every way and brought to a high state of productiveness. It ranks with the best stock farms in the county and Mr. Eylar is recognized as a progressive farmer who knows how to produce good crops and dispose of them to advantage. He devotes himself to general farming and has made a marked success of raising hogs. Politically Mr. Eylar is a Democrat. His forefathers were devoted to Democratic principles and he has never seen reason why he should falter in his allegiance to them. He is not an office seeker or an active politician but takes a patriotic interest in all public questions. Mr. Eylar was married, near Jacksonville, Ohio, March 5, 1862, to Louisa, daughter of Matthew and Elizabeth (Guilford) Sample. Mr. and Mrs. Eylar's children are: Virginia, wife of Christian Swartz, of Brown county, Kansas; James A., who married Etta McGregor and is employed by the Smith-Premier Typewriter Company, at St. Louis, Missouri; Matthew S., who married Alice Archer and is manager of the office of the Hatch Book Typewriter Company in New York city; and Joseph, Edward and Fenton, all members of their parents' household.

Plat Book

Historical Plat Book of Doniphan County, Kansas, 1882

A.R. EYLAR was born in 1847 in Winchester, Adams County, Ohio; settled in this county in 1873; residence on Section 36, Township 4, Range 19; P.O. Eden; business, farmer and stock-raiser. His wife was born in the same place in 1846. They were married in 1872, and have one son and one daughter.

Obituary

Atchison Daily Globe, Atchison, KS, [newspaper].

1 Feb 1915, p.2

James Eylar, a pioneer of Doniphan county, died Saturday at his home in Everest. He settled in Doniphan county in 1854, and came from Ohio, and for years lived on a farm on Independence creek, twelve miles north west of Atchison. Four years ago he moved to Everest. The funeral services will occur in the Methodist church at Everest at 11 o'clock Wednesday morning, and burial will take place in Denton.
Mr. Eylar, who was a very kindly man, was one of the most intelligent men in this part of the country. He was a student, inclined to be literary, and a great reader. He is survived by his wife and five sons and one daughter. He was a cousin of Dick Fenton, of Atchison. "I never knew a better man," Mr. Fenton said to-day.

Obituary

Newspaper clipping
31 Jul 1917

A DEATH AT GOOD INTENT

A.R. Eylar, a resident of the Good Intent vicinity 44 years, died at his home six miles south of Denton at 6:30 o'clock last night. Death was caused by paralysis, from which he had been ill two years. He was born at Winchester, Adams county, Ky. [OH], March 21, 1847, and married Miss Matilda Horner there December 17, 1872. They came to Kansas in March, 1872 [1873]. He is survived by his widow and three children, Calvin LeRoy, Mrs. John Weik and Alfred. Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon, the procession leaving the house at 2 o'clock, arriving at the Denton Methodist church at 2:30 o'clock, where the services will be held. The Rev. Mr. Reed, of Everest, pastor of the Denton Methodist church, will officiate.