Myers & Ward Thanksgivings

When I was a kid we would alternate where we ate Thanksgiving dinner -- one year we would go next door to my Myers grandparent’s house and the next we went to my Ward grandparent’s house. It was always an exciting time that began by watching our relatives arrive.

Over at the Myers Thanksgiving were my grandparents J.H. & Bertie and we would wait for everyone to arrive -- C.D. Rosie & their family; Eunice & Betty Ann; Ralph, Jackie & Sharon; Ruby & Burl and their family, Pauline & Ezra, and Rudolph & his family.

At the Ward Thanksgiving were my grandparents Jack & Edna and we would wait for Woodson & his family; Lloyd George and his family; and Sidney & his family.

At both places people would show up that were friends of my grandparents, uncles & aunts – people I didn’t know and wish I could remember who they were. But it was clear that our family had a lot of friends.

Today, as you experience your Thanksgiving enjoy the company of those around you and take time to pay a little attention to the younger folks around the table. Someday, they will be the only ones who will remember and share their memories of the day with people we will never know and who will never know us – but we all belong to the same family. Look at the names I wrote above again. A few of you will remember them, but most of you never knew them. However, if you had known them – you would have looked forward to the times you would have together.

Happy Thanksgiving & Make Some Great Memories!

Jim, James or Jr. Myers (depending upon when you knew me)

New Pictures Posted on Facebook Page

New pictures have been posted on the Family Facebook Page at -- https://www.facebook.com/myerswardgathering?ref=hl

A Glimpse Into What Life Was Like When I was a Kid

When I was a kid the world I lived in was very different from the world my grandkids live in today. In my world there were a lot more people involved in our daily lives – and many of those people were almost like members of the family.

It is important to understand that the following people didn’t just come to our house daily or at least several times a week, they knew our house and our neighborhood. They knew the families and looked out for them too. If something looked wrong or out of place, they would check to make sure things were OK.

The first person I will tell you about came to our house several times a week. He came when mother put a sign similar to the one below in the bedroom window that faced the street.

The number that she put on top told the iceman how many pounds of ice to deliver. The ice was a big block. We would be sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast when the backdoor would open and we would hear “Iceman!”

He walked in with the block of ice thrown over his shoulder and go straight to the icebox. Ours was like the one below.

See the open door on the top left. That is where he put the block of ice. It was how we kept the food cold in the icebox. The ice would slowly melt and water would drain into a pan at the bottom. I can still smell the odor that escaped when the door to part where the block of ice was kept.

Every day another man came by our very early in the morning, usually before we even got out of bed.

 The milkman delivered fresh milk in glass bottles. He would place the bottles on the front porch close to the door. Mother would put the empty milk bottles out at night and he would take them away.

Every full bottle had a cardboard top that looked like this.

We would collect them and play like they were coins in games we played. Another man that came to our house six-days a week was the postman.

See the big bag the postman above is carrying? Our postman would park his mail-truck at one end of the street, get out with his bag bulging, and start down one side of the street. Everyone had a mailbox on their front porch that looked something like this.

The mailman would check and see if there were any letters in it that needed to be mailed and take them. He would then put the day’s mail in it. He would go to the end of the block and then crossover to the other side of the street and work his way back to the mail-truck.

There are two other people I want to tell you about that caught my attention in the spring, when the focus was on gardening. The first is Mr. Ferguson. He lived a few houses down the street from us. Dad hired him every year to plow our field before we planted the garden. This is how he plowed it.

I would walk behind him in the freshly plowed dirt and listen to him talking to his horses as he worked. He would make this sound or that sound and they would speed up, slow down, turn right, turn left, or stop – often without him pulling on the reins. The smell of freshly plowed dirt is something I will never forget.

The last person I will introduce you to today is Mr. Bevils. He had his own horses and plowed his own garden. He raised a lot of vegetables and early in the morning he would load a wagon that looked similar to the one below.

He would drive his wagon downtown to the Market Square and stay there until he sold everything. I would hear the empty wagon and the clopping of the horses hooves coming down the street and run out an wave at him.

One last memory that I will share is about our old green army truck. I was a kid right after World War II and my dad bought an old army truck at an Army auction that looked like the one below.

It was always exciting to ride in it. You couldn’t get it stuck and it would have pulled an army tank if needed. When it was time to go somewhere, mom, dad and I piled in the cab and took off.

Well, that is the world I grew up in as a kid. It was full of people who did jobs, most of which no longer exists. There were so many local jobs that anyone that wanted to work could usually find one. 

I hope you enjoyed the journey.

Jim Myers

James Henry Myers Family Moves to Hubbard Texas

(The following story was written by my father James Edgar Myers, Sr.)

James Henry & Alberta Harless Myers Family

We (James Henry Myers family) moved to Hubbard, Texas about this time, I (James Edgar Myers, Sr.) was probably four or five years of age.

http://www.bestplaces.net/images/city/hubbard_tx.gif

I do not remember how we moved down there, probably by wagon, as we did not own a car until 1927. During World War I years the price of cotton was about 50 cents a pound which was about four times the normal price. My father quit his job at the shops and decided to start farming and get rich off raising cotton. I don’t think the venture was too successful, as only three years and we moved back to Cleburne in 1922.

I remember that we lived near a railroad crossing and the trains came by our house several times each day and night. The engineer always blew the whistle for the crossing. We would wave at him every time he passed. My brother, George Ralph Myers, and I slept in a room where the front door was located. One night I woke up and saw a man staring through the front door at us. I promptly covered up my head for a long period of time. When I finally peeped from under the cover, the man was gone.

I remember one day a small airplane ran out of gas and landed in our pasture. My father took me to see it and I was real excited. My father said the allies were using planes like this to drop bombs on the Germans and also fought the German planes with machine guns in the air. My father told us the Germans had developed a long range gun that could destroy cities over thirty miles away. He told me they had tanks that could run over trees and buildings. I always worried about them coming to America and destroying all our cities.

One day we went to town and there was an Army band there playing music and recruiting men for the army. I couldn’t resist getting close enough to look at the huge horns some of them were playing. One of the players reached down and grabbed my cap and put it down into his horn. After teasing me for a while, he returned it.

I loved to ride in a wagon to town to buy supplies and food, as we usually ended up at the drug store when he bought me a double dip ice cream cone and himself a large mug of root beer. I also enjoyed going to the hardware store, as it had a deep well through the floor of a back room. We would draw us a bucket full of cold water and get a drink. I liked to take a peek down into the well and see the reflection of light on the water.

We moved to another farm that had a large cotton field west of the house. My grandparents (George Washington Harless) lived at the other end of the long rows of cotton. Ralph and I would slip off and go visit grandmother Mary Adelaide Royal Harless every chance we got. She usually had some popcorn, cookies or cake waiting for us.

One day my sister (Eunice Myers) and I was playing in the cotton wagon. My father kept some matches under the wagon, to light his cigarettes with. He always carried a chunk of “Brown Mule” chewing tobacco and a sack of “Bull Durham” smoking tobacco in his pocket.

http://p2.la-img.com/342/10298/2541849_1_l.jpg

http://www.backintimetradingpost.com/product-photos/bull-durham-sign-1-1325548519.gif

He always rolled his own cigarettes and there weren't very many ready-rolled ones available back in those days.

As I was saying, we were playing in the wagon full of cotton and decided to see if cotton would burn. We struck a match and the whole wagon was ablaze in a few minutes. Luckily my father and C.D. were picking cotton nearby and came and put the fire out in the wagon, but you can easily guess he set out tails afire with his hand. I don’t remember who struck the match, but that was the last time we ever struck a match in a wagon of cotton.

It was at this farm that I almost died with pneumonia. I remember feeling very bad for several days before I mentioned it to my mother. She felt my head and said I had a high fever. She put me to bed and gave me some medicine but I became worse and they called the doctor. They put ice packs on me to reduce the fever. I became unconscious and while this way I remember seeing a large brick building with lots of big wheels, pulleys and motors turning round and round. I remembered this for many years. After we moved back to Cleburne a few years later, my father took me to the Water Department to pay the water bill, when to my surprise I was looking at the exact duplicate of the things I had seen when unconscious.

(Smaller version of the water department in this picture.)

http://tebeau304.clevelandhistory.org/files/2012/04/Division-Pumping001.jpg

My father must have taken me there when I was a very young child and it had left the image impressed on my brain. 

The events in this story took place probably between 1918 and 1922. George Washington Harless died on April 6, 1923, about a year after James Henry Myers moved back to Cleburne. He is buried in Hubbard.

I hope you enjoyed my dad's story. 

James Edgar "Jim" Myers, Jr.

The Myers-Kellison Journey From Missouri to Texas

The following information comes from The Family of John W Myers – Mahala Caroline Kellison By Roy E. Gibson:

With Reconstruction following the Civil War and the pitfalls of farming in general it is assumed life was full of hard work and struggle. What the exact or combined reasons were to convince John W. Myers and his relations to move to central Texas is or are not known. Jacob Myers, his father, had three half-brothers and two half-sisters and their mother to move to Coryell County, Texas in 1871. One can only speculate as to whether letters from the ones in Coryell or other factors made up their mind to move to Bosque County Texas.

In 1950 the compiler had the good fortune of driving Aunt Lee Womack from her home in Brady, Texas to my Mother’s home in Ft. Worth, Texas. This was some five years prior to my actual beginning of the research of my family lines. It has always been a disappointment to me that I didn't have a recorder, for most of her early years of life were recalled as best she could remember. On that particular day she was some 82 years of age. She was either 6 or 7 years of age when the trip from Miller County, Missouri to Bosque County, Texas was made. As I try to recall some of her remembrances on that day, I come up with the following:

(1) There were quite a few wagons in the group or wagon train most of whom were related in some way.

(2) The route they took generally was from near Iberia, Miller County, Missouri via Springfield, Missouri, Eureka Springs, Fayetteville and Fort Smith, Arkansas, McAlester, Oklahoma, Denison, Texas, or near there, Ft. Worth, Texas and Bosque County, Texas.

(3) The scared feeling she and the other children experienced as those times Indians were sighted in the Oklahoma segment of their journey.

(4) Ft. Worth was a very small town when they passed through.

From Aunt Lee’s remembrances and a small booklet pertaining to the Kellison family, it appears the following families were in the wagon train:

(1) Jacob Myers, wife and children

(2) John W. Myers, wife and children

(3) James Peter “Pete” and Abraham “Abe” Myers

(4) Robert L. Kellison, wife Hannah Myers and their children

(5) William Kellison, possibly his wife, and two single children

(6) John Kellison, wife and children

(7) James H. Baxter, wife Mary “Polly” Kellison and children

(8) James Green, wife Sarah Kellison and children

(9) Davidson family (cousins of the Kellisons)

(10) Lawson family (cousins of the Kellisons)

The only record found as to the date of their journey is the year 1874 left by the descendant of Uncle Will Baxter. It would have had to taken place in the last half of this year, for Uncle Charley Myers was born the 11^th of May, 1874 in Miller County, Missouri. Most of the families had small children, which must have restricted their daily distance traveled.

Upon their arrival in Bosque County, Texas, be it 1874 or 1875, most of the families appear to have settled near Meridian and possibly to the west and northwest toward Walnut Springs, Texas. They were all farmers by occupation; however during the off-season John W. Myers and his two brothers, Pete and Abe, worked building rock fences.

James Henry Myers died 62 years ago on February 13th

Last Friday marked the 62^nd anniversary of the death of my grandfather James Henry Myers -- February 13, 1953. I will tell my story of that day, a day that was burned in my memory, because I lost not only “Granddaddy Myers,” but my friend. My dad lost his dad and his best friend, too. Keep in mind that my memories were captured through the eyes of a young boy as I share them with you.

James Henry “JH” Myers

This is the face that I remember – look at that smile! I looked into those smiling eyes many times. I went through bouts with rheumatic fever and had to spend a lot of time in bed and every time he came through the door to see me, it was those smiling eyes that I first saw.

Now, I will tell about the last day of his life. It happened on the day of my Cub Scouts meeting. My mother, Gladys Ward Myers, was one of the Den Mothers. I don’t remember seeing granddaddy earlier that day, but I am sure I did. He worked with my dad at Myers Plant Co. which was located at our house. Below is a map of my world as a child – Erie Street (between Boone Street & Ramsey Street).

House #1 is our house and House #2 is where my grandparents (JH & Alberta Harless Myers) lived. House #3 is where my dad’s sister Pauline and her husband Ezra Banks lived.

My scout meeting was at House #5, the home of Weldon & Faye Ard, she was a Den Mother with my mother. Lewis Ard was my age and we were in the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts & Sea Explorer Scouts together (along with Paul Corbin and James Owens who also lived very close to the Ard home). On the way to the meeting we walked by House #4 which was where Mr. & Mrs. Ferguson lived. I always stopped and petted his two horses if they were close to the fence. Mr. Ferguson always plowed our field with those horses and I would follow along behind him watching and listening to him talk to the horses.

We were I the meeting when someone came running up shouting that there was an ambulance down at our house. I think I beat everyone outside and ran into the street to see what was going on. Mother, carrying my little brother Glenn, came running up behind me. We ran home and the next memory I have is standing in the kitchen looking through the door into dad & mom’s bedroom and seeing granddaddy laying in the bed with the men from the ambulance and dad bending over him. He was unconscious and not moving. They put him on a gurney and carried him to the ambulance, dad was in there with him and it sped away with lights flashing and the siren going. The hospital was only a few blocks away (left on Ramsey Street). That was the last time I ever saw my grandfather alive.

Sometime after midnight dad woke me up and with mom standing there, he told me granddad had died at 11:30 pm. All I remember is how bad he was hurting. Mom asked him what he was going to do and he said he was going to clean up and go down to the funeral home and stay with his dad for the rest of the night. Back in those days, a family member stayed with the body until the funeral (24 hours a day). By the next morning all my aunts and uncles arrived at my grandparent’s house and they took shifts of staying with JH. Here is the obituary from the Cleburne Times Review.

I don’t remember if the funeral was on Monday or Tuesday, but here is the brochure from the service.

I have flashes of the service, seeing granddaddy in the casket, and being surrounded by all of the family and a lot of other people. I never realized my granddad had so many friends. I remember my grandmother Myers and feeling her pain that day. From that day for the remainder of the time she lived next door to us, dad would be there to take care of his mother.

Below are a couple of pictures of my grandparents (James Henry Myers & Alberta Harless Myers):

(I always wondered what he was thinking in this one.)

There are those smiles again.

Here are a couple of pictures in his Sunday clothes:

(I think that shoulder at the bottom belongs

to my cousin “Billy” (William Claude Myers.)

As I said above, my dad and granddad worked together every day. Below is the day they put the first sign up and launched Myers Flower Shop, which became Myers Plant Company.

The year was 1936.

This is a great picture of dad (James E. Myers, Sr.), mom (Gladys Geraldine Ward Myers), granddaddy (James Henry Myers) & Snowball.

Two final pictures. I included this picture to show you granddaddy’s greenhouse. We grew and sold lots of tomato plants every year. Besides selling to our local customers, dad had a contract with the Santa Fe Railroad to supply 50,000 (at least that’s the figure that stuck in my mind) every year. The railroad took them to South Texas where they were planted in field and the tomatoes they produced were shipped all over the country.

Anyway, the way we grew the plants was in hotbeds, glass-covered beds with heaters in them. The plants grew in the ground. When we sold any plants we would simply pull them out of the ground (the minimum was a dozen plants for 10 cents), wrap them up in a piece of newspaper, dunk it in water and give the plants to the customer.

I can’t remember if it was my grandmother or grandfather that came up with the idea – putting one tomato plant in a small container (called a band) and selling the plants individually – for a nickel. Dad thought that was nuts. I can remember him saying why would anyone pay them 60 cents for a dozen tomato plants when they could buy them from him for a dime! Anyway, his parents ignored him and built the little greenhouse in the picture below:

Look closely and you will see a panel just to the right of the door that is leaning out from the wall. They pulled it out when it started to get too warm inside and closed it up when the weather was cold. Those two fine looking young men in the picture are (from the left) my brother Glenn Carl Myers and me (James E. Myers, Jr.).

The last picture is of the one room in their house that was off-limits to us kids – their living room. We only got to go in there on Christmas or when there was a big family gathering. Over on the left is the radio that the family (when dad was still living at home) would gather around to listen to programs at night. Dad was in charge of keeping the right station tuned in. Back then the signal would drift and someone had to keep moving the tuner around to say up with it.

That’s my little sister – Linda Gayle Myers Point –

& our cousin Ronnie Livingston.

Writing this has brought lots of good memories back to my mind. James Henry Myers & James Edgar Myers, Sr. also provided me with the model I have used in my “grandfathership.” I hope I can give my grandkids (and great grandkids) memories like my granddad and dad gave me.

I hope you enjoyed the memories about my grandfather.

The Story of Peter Henry Myers from Nicholas, Kentucky

Peter Henry Myers was born in 1799 in Nicholas, Kentucky. At this time I have not been able to verify who his parents were. Below is a map of the United States at that time, showing the election results of the 1800 election.

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=4163.0

In 1820, William Matthew Babb (1790-1842) and his wife Temperance Shipman Babb (1792-1850) had a daughter and named her Temperance Babb. They were living in what is now Crawford, Indiana.

Peter Henry Myers married, but we do not know what her name was, when or where they were married. On February 10, 1827 they had a son named Jacob Myers in Stoddard County, Missouri.

 http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostodda/sc-towns/stoddard.gif

When Peter was born the state of Missouri did not exist. See how the nation expanded during the early part of his life.

http://bit.ly/lzCU2G

Missouri will be the home of a number of our descendants and the counties where they lived are marked with stars below. As we saw above, Jacob was born in Stoddard County, which is at the lower right corner of the state. Please notice where Miller and Dallas Counties are too, because they will become the home of our descendants very soon.

Peter Myers had the following children with the same unknown wife after Jacob: Abraham Bosley (1831), Elizabeth (1832), Nancy (1837), Peggy J. (1839), and Benjamin George (1841). Benjamin George Myers was born in Castor, Stoddard County, Missouri. Peter’s wife died in 1841. In 1840 the United States looked like this.

It was about 1841 that Mahala Caroline Kellison, called “Mahaley” or “Haley” by her immediate family, was born in Tennessee. She was the third child and second daughter of William and Matilda (Lawson) Kellison, who had ten children in all.

In the year of 1842 or 1843 the Kellison family, along with some related connecting families, moved from Tennessee to Miller County, Missouri. They settled on a farm near the county line between Miller and Maries County, Missouri (northeast of Iberia).

In 1843 Peter Henry Myers married Temperance Babb. On November 1, 1844 they had their first son in Castor, Stoddard County, Missouri (see map above) and named him James Henry Myers.

John W. Myers, the eldest child of Jacob and Susan (Tankersly) Myers, was born about 1846 in Stoddard County, Missouri. In 1847, Peter Henry and Temperance, at Castor, Missouri (see map below - middle of Stoddard County), had a daughter and named her Sarah Myers.

Between 1846 and 1848 Jacob Myers moved his family to Dallas County, Missouri where James Peter “Pete” (b. 1848), Hannah (b. 1851), and Abraham “Abe” (b. 1854) were born. At some point in time between 1847 and April of 1850 Peter Henry Myers moved his family to Dallas County, Missouri.

The 1850 Census has the Kellison family living in Miller County. The 1850 Census from Miller County, Missouri shows that Peter Henry Myers (spelled Myres) and Jacob Myers (spelled Mires) were living next to each other.

http://www.censusrecords.com/content/sparkviewimage?id=322

Jacob lost his wife, Susan (Tankersly) Myers, when she died in 1854 in Dallas County, Missouri. A few years later, Jacob married Deborah Bly (b. 1834 in Missouri). In 1856, Jacob and Deborah Myers had a daughter, Sarah Paralee Myers and in 1858 they had another daughter, Rachel Myers.

In the 1860, the William and Matilda (Lawson) Kellison family are listed on the US Census as residents of Boone Township in Maries County, Missouri. William appears at the bottom of the page and his family continues on the top of the next page.

http://www.censusrecords.com/content/sparkviewimage?id=322

Mahala C. Kellison, on June 11, 1860, was listed at 19 years of age. Later that year or in the next year she married a young man living in her neighborhood by the name of John L. Baxter. Family tradition tells us that John L. Baxter was killed during the Civil War, but we do not know if he served in the Union of Confederate army because Missouri was equally divided. John and Mahala (Kellison) Baxter had a son, William Barnett Baxter, called “Will” by his family on April 16, 1862.

The United States army required all men 20 to 35 years old to register. A registration page dated August 1863 list Jacob Myers as a resident of Miller County, Missouri.

http://www.censusrecords.com/content/sparkviewimage?id=322

On the 28^th of July, 1867, in Miller County, Missouri, John W. Myers married the young widow, Mahala C. (Kellison) Baxter. In this county they lived the first seven or eight years of their married life.

On April 21, 1868, John W. and Mahala Myers had a daughter Samantha Lee Myers in Miller County, Missouri. She will be followed by Matilda Etta Jane Myers on February 5, 1870.

We will continue the story in another blog.

SOURCES:

James Edgar Myers, Jr. Family Tree records

The Family of John W Myers – Mahala Caroline Kellison by Roy E. Gibson

Our Earliest Ancestors

Researching genealogy is like investigating a criminal case and putting together a puzzle – you look for evidence and clues, and then you try to put the picture together. After you travel a few generations back in time, finding new pieces of the puzzle becomes more difficult. One thing you have to keep reminding yourself to do is to keep the verifiable evidence in one pile and all of the other clues in another.

I have collected a great deal of evidence over the past thirty plus years. My pile of clues, however, is a mountain compared to the evidence. The reason that I made you aware of this is that the information I about to share with you about our earliest ancestors comes from the evidence pile. Even though I believe that I know who came before some of the ones below, I am going to wait until I can find more evidence to move them over to the other pile.

I will begin by providing you with an overview of the four people who are my grandparents and at least two of them will probably be your ancestors too.

The Myers Family

James Henry (JH) Myers was born on September 6, 1881 somewhere in Bosque County, Texas. He died on February 13, 1953 in Cleburne, Texas. I knew him, saw him the day he had a stroke at house. I attended his funeral. His father was John W. Myers (b. 1846 in Stoddard County, Missouri / d. in 1886 in Bosque County, Texas). His mother was Mahala Caroline Kellison (b. 1839 in Tennessee / d. 1881 in Arkansas). He was just a few months old when his mother died and was about 5 years old when his father died. He was raised by his older sister Samantha Lee Myers Womack.

Alberta “Bertie” Harless was born on August 18, 1887 somewhere around Birmingham, Alabama. She died on February 5, 1979 in Fort Worth, Texas. She lived next door to us and I saw her almost every day for many years. I attended her funeral. Her father was George Washington Harless (b. October 3, 1864 in Eden, St. Clair Co., Alabama / d. April 6, 1923 in Hubbard, Texas). Her mother was Mary Adelaide Royal (b. August 18, 1864 in Alabama / d. October 17, 1942 in Texarkana, Arkansas). I remember her mother visiting one time.

James Henry Myers married Alberta Harless on May 31, 1905.

The Ward Family

Sidney Berry Ward, Sr. was born on October 3, 1891 in Smith County, Texas. He died on May 27, 1976 in Cleburne, Texas. I was in the hospital room when he took his last breath. He lived in Cleburne and we regularly went to his house on Sundays during my childhood days. I attended his funeral. His father was Thomas Andrew Ward (b. December 1866 in Lee County, Mississippi / d. abt. 1924 in One Creek, Oklahoma). His mother was Susan Leona Stone (b. October 4, 1874 in Troupe, Smith Co., Texas / d. October 19, 1954 in Keene, Texas). We would also visit her on Sundays sometimes. She had a fish pond in the front yard and we loved to watch the gold colored fish in it. I attended her funeral at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Keene.

Fannie Edna Graham was born July 15, 1891 in Chireno, Texas. She died on July 10, 1982 in Cleburne, Texas. My mother (Gladys Myers) was with her when she died. Mother called me to come and get her that night. Mother was sitting by her bed when I arrived at the hospital and she told me how much she loved her mother. I attended her funeral. Her father was James Zolocoffer Graham (b. September 21, 1865 in Choctaw County, Alabama / d. January 12, 1952 in Denning, Texas). Her mother was Martha Jane (Jennie) Walton (b. December 29, 1866 in Mississippi / d. July 28, 1912 in Keene, Texas). She loved her mother very much.

Sidney Berry Ward, Sr. married Fannie Edna Graham on the third floor of Johnson County Courthouse in Cleburne, Texas on September 8, 1913. The courthouse was still under construction at that time. A local paper publish an announcement about the wedding (I have a copy somewhere in my files) in which the reporter said something like – “Mr. Ward broke the third floor of the courthouse right by giving his bride a big kiss.”

Our Earliest Ancestors

The earliest ancestors (according to my evidence not clues) of the Myers-Ward Families are:

Myers-Harless Families

Peter Henry Myers born in 1799 in Nicholas, Kentucky and died in 1871 in Dallas County, Missouri. The name of his wife is unknown.

Nathan Lawson (Kellison line) was born on August 3, 1796 in Tennessee and died in 1858 in Tennessee. The name of his wife is unknown.

Philip Harless born in 1716 in Bavaria, Germany and died in 1772 (4 years before the United States became a nation). His wife was Anna Margaretha Preiss who was born in 1718 and died in 1784. They were married on February 17, 1738 in Offenbach, Germany.

Wilson Young Royal was born on February 4, 1827 in Dooly, Georgia and died in 1919 in Hamilton, Texas. His wife was Almira (Elmira) White born on October 27, 1827 in Georgia.

Ward-Graham Families

George J. Ward was born January 20, 1815 in Stepney, London, England and died in 1903 in Lenton, Stutsman, North Dakota. His wife Lucinda Ward was born in 1822 in South Carolina and died November 8, 1903 in Lenton, Stutsman, North Dakota.

William Stone was born in 1740 in Londonderry, Londonderry, Ireland and died January 9 1812 in Williamson, Tennessee. His wife Jane Rowland was born in 1745 in Londonderry, Londonderry, Ireland and died in 1828 in Williamson, Tennessee.

John "Reverend" Graham, Sr. was born September 20, 1694 in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland and died December 11, 1774 in Woodbury, Litchfield, Connecticut. His wife Love Sanborn was born August 30, 1702 in Kingston, Rockingham, New Hampshire and died March 1, 1725 in Stafford Springs, Tolland, Connecticut.

John C. Walton was born September 15, 1777 in Edgefield County, South Carolina and died May 5, 1850 in Newton County, Mississippi. His wife Sarah Elizabeth McMillin was born in 1783 in South Carolina and died November 1, 1862 in Union, Neshoba County, Mississippi.

Please share any additional information you might have or your thoughts about this blog here or on our Facebook Page.

James (Jim) Myers