Nuts From the Family Tree: Mary Myers Eckhart 1837

See that tab up top? The one that says, "Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers"? Right, that's it. Take a look. It's a privately published book by one of my uncles, sister to my 4th great grandmother Mary Myers, produced about 1900. There's a lot of names, dates, and place in it and Mom and I have found it to be surprisingly accurate. There is one glaring error but Thomas F. Myers had no way of know that his Revolutionary War hero and great grandfather, Nehemiah Newans, did not die at the Battle of Yorktown but lived a long and happy life... elsewhere, and without his wife and son. But otherwise he was a dandy scholar of the history of our family.

So, just the other afternoon, I got to thinking that maybe there were details in that little book I'd overlooked or dismissed as folklore. Maybe I should go back and catalog the myriad details on those pages of his about the ancestors in my direct line. Make a list or a chart or something and see what could be seen. There's a lot there and with time - a lot of it - and a research log to track where I went, maybe more could be found. And that's what I've been doing, and have to say, this is going to take a LOT of time!!

So here it is. The chart that will hopefully show truth through documentation, if I can find that documentation. The right hand column is where I'll track findings so it's practically empty now.

Hey, and let me know if you have any missing pieces or can elaborate on any events, dates or places. Thanks!!

"Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers" Fact Check

Person	Text	Finding
Miss Kepplinger	Family came from Holland. Religious persecution. Lutheran. During war, drove cart that seemed to have butter and eggs but had had sacks of powder, through lines. Was searched but told to pass.
Miss Kepplinger’s Mother Given Cory Kepplinger	Sister to Col. Corry. Made sheep skin shoes for soldiers.	Her maiden name was Cory. This is the correct spelling as per Wikipedia.
Col. Corry / Cory	French & Indian and Rev. fame. Town of Corry PA was named for him.	Town is Corry but founders name was Cory. Wiki.
Mrs. Macelvaine	Sister to Miss Kepplinger’s mother	Her maiden name was Cory too.
Mr. Koontz	Miss Kepplinger’s uncle. Owner Colonial Hotel of York PA. Continental Congress was held here after run out of Philadelphia.
Father Mr. Kepplinger	Ground all wheat for soldiers at Valley Forge. Had a salt works on the Patapsco river where Baltimore now stands. The company was known as Beason, Kepplinger & Magoun. They conveyed salt to Beasontown, now Uniontown.	Uniontown was Beesontown, Founded by Henry Beeson, 1776. Wiki.
Father, Mother, and servants	Attended to and fed soldiers in their barn.
Thomas Newan	War of 1812 Maryland Volunteers Capt. Steiners Company Col. Stoners Regiment
Mary Knough	Wife of Thomas Newins
Peggy Datsbaugh Bartgis	Mary Knough’s sister. Same mother but different fathers. Married Matthew Bartgis
Matthew Bartgis	Mayor of Frederick for years after Lt. Gov. of MD. 1^st man to carry mail from Frederick to Winchester and from Winchester to Georgetown. 1750, organized the mail service in America. First to print a nsp at Winchester VA and Frederick MD/
James Bartgis	Son of Matthew and Peggy Mayor of Frederick
Hiram Bartgis	Son of Matthew and Peggy Sheriff of Frederick
Peggy Bartgiss Father Mr. Datsbaugh	Member of the House of Burgess Carried an effigy of King George through the streets of Frederick & burned it in 1763.
Indian Fighter
Peter Myers	Helped build Ft Frederick in 1756. Served in Rev. War: Battle of Brandywine Wounded at Battle of Monmouth
Mary Hughes	Wife of Peter Myers. They had 5 children: Betsy Nancy John William Jacob, served in 1812	Most trees show Hibbs.
Jacob Myers	Born in Tanneytown MD 1789 Died Cumberland 7 Feb 1852 Served in 1812 Sheriff of Frederick County. Stage agent for Sto?? ??tokes stage line from Frederick to Morgantown. Afterward transferred to Cumberland.

Mary Myers Eckhart 1837-1909

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Many bloggers use Surname Saturday as a blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. It's giving me a total genealogy work out and with summer swimsuit season coming... oh never mind. But it's the same thing, kinda, because as I go through the weeks the holes and errors present themselves. Plus, and because Mom did 99.9% of the work on the tree, it is my opportunity to work my way through her accumulated data and gain an even deeper familiarity with it.

This week we continue through Generation 5, taking the women one by one, and now it's time to view what we know about Mary Myers' ancestry. She has an interesting pedigree and I'll flesh out most of it for you even though to do so means reaching out on a branch or two. See, one of the aspects of doing this exercise that tickles me is trying to give you a more detailed picture of who these people were, and are to me.

So let's get on with it! Here's Mary Myers and her ancestors. And this week I'm putting parenthesis around the years for clarity. At first I did and then I didn't, but now I think I do.

1. Diane Kelly Weintraub

2. Francis Patrick " Pat" Kelly (1916 - 2007)
3. Virginia Williams, that's Mom, living and loving it!

4. John Lee "Lee" Kelly (1892 - 1969)
5. Helen Gertrude Zeller Kelly (1894 - 1985)

8. Francis Patrick Kelly (1854 - 1923)
9. Christiana Eckhart (1861 - 1932)

18. John Eckhart (1831 - 1917)

19. Mary Myers Eckhart (1837 - 1909)
To see the post on the Eckhart line visit here.
John Eckhart was born 5 Nov 1831 in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland and died 5 Mar 1917 in the same place. He married Mary Myers on 22 Apr 1859 in Allegany County, Maryland. She was his second wife whom he wed after Rebecca O'Brien died in 1856. He came from a long landed family with an interesting past and would have been known to all who lived in the town named for his ancestor, Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland.
Mary Myers was born 20 Mar 1837 in Frederick County, Maryland and died 30 Oct 1909 in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland. Her father, Jacob was transferred to Cumberland and it was likely there that John and Mary met and were wed. In the 1860 US census he's working as a railroad hand and living in Lonaconing, Allegheny, Maryland. In the 1880 census he and the family at living in Eckhart, now called Eckhart Mines, and working as a miner, and that would be coal miner. My GGM Christiana Eckhart, has made an appearance and is 18. (Right, I can't find them in the 1870 census, a task on the to do list.) He stays in the same place until his death in 1917. John outlived Mary as she died in 1909.
They had the following children:
9. Christiana Eckhart (1861 - 1932)
Maggie L. Eckhart (1864 - ????). She married William Rechter.
Rachael Eckhart (1865 - 1940), who married Thomas W. Gracie, and then at his passing in 1909 in a horrible mining accident, she married Robert Strathan.
John Thomas Eckhart (1867 -1917). He married Rachael Pengilly.
Mary Catherine Eckhart (1868 - ????).

38. Jacob Myers (1789 - 1852)
39. Christiana Newans (1811 - 1865)
They had these children:
Margaret Myers (1835 - ????)
19. Mary Myers Eckhart (1837 - 1909)
Chrissie Myers ( about 1840 - ????)
Thomas F. Myers (1841 - before 1920)
Laura Myers (1845 - ????)
Now that you can see the line-up of kids, here's something about Thomas F. Myers, and you can read the book he most likely wrote himself and had published on the tab above, The Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers. Thomas was the brother of Mary Myers Eckhart. This little book has been proven to have errors but those mistakes were not known to Thomas F. Myers at the time he had it printed. I just reread it more closely and plucked out even more clues to the Myers line. It all needs to be investigated, to be sure, but I'll tell you what it says.
About Jacob Myers:
* Served in the War of 1812
* At 9 years of age, shook George Washington's hand when Jacob told Washington where an old soldier lived.
* Was the sheriff of Frederick County, Maryland.
* Was the stage agent for a stage line (named but illegible to me due to paper burn) that ran from Frederick to Cumberland, Allegany, Maryland.
* He was transferred to Cumberland.
As I say, it all needs to be investigated, but this was Thomas F. and Mary's father so there's a basis for him knowing.

And now the information gets a little sketchy. What I'm going to include here comes from the book printed by Thomas F. Myers and needs to be proven, but what the hey, let's live on the wild side! Notice that I have no numbers for these as they have not yet been posted to Mom's Big Tree because we don't know for sure.

Peter Myers (???? - 1825)
Mary Hughes or possibly Hibbs (???? - ????)
I went ahead and posted this information on Mom's Ancestry Big Tree as a test, just to see what leaves would pop up. That's why I added Hibbs as a surname for Peter's wife. Told ya' this was sketchy.
Here's what The Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers recorded about Peter.
About Peter Myers:
* Peter is the one son who made his escape during the Indian massacre (see below).
* Was "bound out" as a servant when parents were killed.
* Became a tailor early on.
* Was a scout and Indian fighter.
* Helped build Fort Frederick in Maryland.
* Served in the Revolutionary War in the Maryland Line.
* Wounded at the Battle of Brandywine.
* Wounded again at the Battle of Monmouth.
* In old age, lost his fortune after the money from the sale of his farm proved worthless.
* Died penniless.
Wow! That's a lot of real juicy information right there ready for research. But it needs to be checked out real well. Much work for later.

"Indian Fighter" Myers (????-????)
Unknown wife
Are you ready? Here's what The Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers had to say about Indian Fighter Myers who was Thomas' GGF.
* His tract of land was shown on old charts and maps as a "manor".
* Fought the Indians in the Wyoming Valley in the "Indian War".
* Killed seven Indians in a fight to the death with a double sided axe.
* The Indians offered a "ransom" for him dead or alive. (Bounty?)
* His wife was a "half-breed Indian" of the Shawnee tribe.
* During an Indian raid, his house was surrounded. His family, except for Peter, was killed and "Indian Fighter" was bound as a prisoner and later killed.
* Peter "made his escape" during this episode and hid in the brush and thus saved.
Gosh, Grandma Kelly always told me I was descended from an Indian princess;) Well she did, but no one ever took that seriously. And I guess that now that I have my DNA results back, which you can see here and below, neither do I. If the story was that the wife of "Indian Fighter" was Sub-Saharan African I think we'd have a match. But maybe she was:)

As you can see, the last two generation are very dramatic but do need checking! That will be fun.