Ole's Blog

This individual is the link connecting the Pennsylvania Myers’ with the Maryland branch.

Forty Fort cemetery, PA

Madison F. Myers was born in Maryland, and removed to the Wyoming Valley (PA), where he married Harriet Myers, daughter of Philip Myers, and also his cousin, according to Genealogical and Family History of Wyoming and Lackawanna Valleys … Therefore, Madison’s father must be Philip’s brother.

My first post about Michael Myers’ gravestone drew a comment to the effect that Madison F. (Fout) Myers was indeed the son of that particular Michael Myers and Elizabeth Fout. Although I have yet to document this from an authoritative source, circumstantial evidence continues to accumulate. As today’s example, note the first and second name of Madison and Harriet’s first child:

Martha, the name of Harriet’s mother, and Elisabeth (Madison’s mother). It appears that the rest of the children were named not after ancestors, but prominent public figures, including Jenny Lind, the Swedish opera star who made her famous tour of the U.S. in 1850, the year of the fourth child’s birth.

Besides these four, who all died in early childhood, there were at least two other children, Franklin Benham Myers (also buried at Forty Fort), and William Penn Myers, whose name I found as a co-plaintiff with brother Franklin, in a lawsuit in 1889. By the way, F. Benham Myers, as his tombstone is inscribed, was the grandfather of Dr. Charles E. Myers, author of a relatively recent (1993), popular history of the Wyoming valley, presented as the biography of a leading pioneer there, our common ancestor Thomas Bennet.

More on this thread as it can be uncovered.

Once again, Mike Pierce has made my day. Not only has he held my hand through the labyrinth of MDLandrec.net; now Mike has steered me back to the old reliable US census. Duh. There is now proof positive that the “blacksmith of Myers Ford” (as I have nicknamed him) is indeed the husband of Elizabeth Fout, and so he is the “gravestone” Michael, and, by anecdote at least, brother of Philip and Lawrence Myers.

Mike pointed out that in the 1850 census, in the Creagerstown district of Frederick County, MD, an Elizabeth Myers, age 77, was counted as head of a household. This age puts her *close* to the birth date of 1770 given on the gravestone for Elizabeth Fout Myers. Also in the household is Mary Myers, age 48, listed on the stone with birth date of 1803. Only one year off in the case of Mary, three years for elderly Elizabeth; there can be little doubt these are the ones. The 1850 census was the first to include names of all household members, instead of only the head of each household. But I tracked the census entries back through 1840, 30, 20, 10, and 1800, and the numbers per age bracket match up pretty well. More on the census data in a moment.

To further cement the connection, Mike found a land sale on MDLandrec.net that ties it all together. As usual, click on the image to enlarge.

This deed was issued to George Layman, who bought the land from Mary Myers on 30 Aug. 1851, for a price of $468. The description includes exactly the seven parcels that Michael purchased between 1793 and 1810! Mary, you may recall, is included on the aforementioned gravestone. Besides cementing the relationships, the deed is encouraging to me personally; it indicates that I found all of the correct land transactions, and no spurious ones.

But the censuses (censi?) also reveal something I was wishfully thinking was not the case: the family owned slaves To be specific, one (plus one “free Negro”) in 1800, two in 1810, three (plus one “free Negro”) in 1820, a high of six in 1830 (remember, the farm and business were now being managed by a widow and adult daughter, who were also apparently supporting an orphan girl), five in 1840 and 1850. I’ll have to cede the moral high ground on that one.

The next problem (I’m hoping not too hard) is to tie the 1810-1830 census data, which show a boy of the right age bracket, to Madison F (Fout?) Myers, who removed to Pennsylvania, and married his cousin Harriet Myers. If that is successful, it will lead back to a harder job, one that I have been “on” for some time: to identify the father (and/or mother) of Philip, Lawrence, Michael, and Henry Myers.

Between 1793 and 1810, Michael Myers purchased seven parcels of land, totaling approx. 168 acres, in the vicinity of Hunting creek, where it meets the Monocacy River. From the deeds and plats at MDlandrec.net, I was able to draw crude diagrams of the parcels, and superimpose them at their approximate location, roughly to scale, on the 1911 topographic map shown earlier, thanks to Mike Pierce and mytopo.com. For a larger map with more details, click on the image.

It appears that this particular Michael Myers was very successful as a self-made entrepeneur (blacksmith and wagon-maker) and a farmer. 168 acres is not a huge farm, but not trifling either. Although Maryland was a slave state, slaves were generally owned by the wealthy English colonist-planters, rarely if ever by the much poorer German immigrant families. Michael may have had employees, perhaps apprentices, to help with his business and farming, but most likely not slaves (*! not so – see later posts).

As best I can tell after several weeks of perusing the land records, these seven parcels plus the lot in Woods Town are the only land in Frederick County held outright by any Michael Myers during that period. However, I did uncover another individual by that name. In an estate settlement of one Christian Shull in 1812, a lot in Frederick Town was conveyed in equal parts to all nine of Shull’s children, one of whom was named as “Margaret Myers of Frederick County, Wife of Michael Myers.”

While this Michael could conceivably be the blacksmith of Myers Ford, he could not be the “gravestone” Michael, who married Elizabeth Fout in 1792 and is buried with her at Mt. Olivet Cemetery. So now we have “Michael-1″(1768-1815), husband of Elizabeth Fout  Myers  as memorialized on that gravestone (and purportedly also the brother of Philip Myers); and “Michael-2,” husband of Margaret Shull Myers (nothing more is known).

Other land transactions of note during this period involve a Michael Myers as a trustee or administrator of several estates. Here is a list of those I found, with dates and names of deceased:

3 Jul 1808 John Carlin
10 Sep 1811 Peter Stimmel
30 Oct 1812 John Rusher
7 Jan 1814 John Rusher
27 Aug 1814 Barnhart Gilbert
9 Dec 1816* John Devilibis *The deed recorded on this date states that Michael Myers was a trustee on 5 June 1815, but had since died, and another trustee, Jacob Cramer, taken over. As we shall see in a moment, Cramer was also administrator of Michael Myers’ estate. While these dates do not prove anything, they at least suggest that this is “Michael-1,” who died in 1815, as indicated on his gravestone.

Now let us review the newspaper abstracts naming a Michael Myers as an appointee of the Frederick County government. Someone by that name was appointed as a Supervisor in 1801 and 1804, Supervisor of Roads (1803; could this have something to do with “Myers Ford?”), Justice of the Peace (1803, 1804, 1810), Estate administrator (1805, 1808, 1809, including two of the deceased named above).  Were these “Michael-1,”  “Michael-2,” or a combination of the two, and perhaps others? No convincing evidence, but from my humble deductions, Michael-1 is the stronger candidate. I am also currently leaning toward Michael-1 for the Myers Ford blacksmith, for a couple of reasons already stated. While we are reading  the “news,” don’t forget the article of 9 Mar 1816, naming Jacob Cramer as Administrator for the estate of Michael Myers.

Next question: When Michael the blacksmith died, whether it was in 1815 or some other year, what became of his land at Hunting Creek? I have scoured the index for transactions involving Jacob Cramer, and found several, but none for any of that particular land, and none involving an estate of Michael Myers. I will appeal to Mike Pierce for help, yet again.

Perhaps I am getting too obsessed with identifying a person who is not even a direct ancestor. But I am grasping hard after his parents (who are), and this is all I have to go on, so far.

Remember the earliest record I found of land purchase by a Michael Myers? It was in Woods Town (also known as Woodsberry, Woodbury, and today is called Woodsboro). Michael bought lot #4 in 1790, and sold it just a year later, to a “Philip Henry Myers,” which name I chalked up to coincidence. But on 1 March 1799, Michael Myers bought the same lot again, not from its owner, but from the sheriff of Frederick County!

The land was seized in a court-issued “writ of Fieri Facias,” which is a seizure of property to satisfy a debt. The writ was issued against not “Philip Henry Myers,” but “Henry Myers,” and Michael along with him. (My mentor, Mike Pierce, thinks that including Michael may have been an error, but there may be more to it.)

A couple of things here get my neck hairs standing up. First, the name, of course. If the individual who bought this lot from Michael eight years earlier was named not “Philip Henry” but “Henry,” it tantalizingly suggests that these were indeed the brothers Michael and Henry Myers, brothers also to Philip and Lawrence Myers, who were settled by this time in Pennsylvania. The name in the 1791 deed, “Philip Henry Myers,” may have been a clerical error, or perhaps brother Philip of PA may have been involved somehow in the purchase.

Here is what Mike Pierce said about the 1799 transaction:

This is a case of the somewhat unique Maryland system of Ground Rents. When Joseph Wood conveyed the property in 1790, it was not a a real sale. The land was “assigned” to Michael Myers who then had to pay annual “ground rent” of 7 shillings, 6 pence forever. He never really owned the land, only what he built on it. This is the system today in much of Baltimore.

In WR 11:177, 7 May 1792, Joseph Wood transferred all his ground rents in Woodberry Town to Adam Creager, who then had the right to collect them. I suspect that Henry Myers didn’t pay the rent, so Adam Creager took action ( I presume through his lawyer David Lynn). From the deed in WR 10:297, it would seem that Philip Henry Myers was responsible for paying the rent, but the writ maybe incorrectly also names Michael. Anyway, Michael came up with the money to pay the back rent and regained ownership.

Since the current deeds do not mention a ground rent, I presume they were extinguished by being purchased by the property owner some time ago.

These ground rents are continuing to cause trouble when people think they buy a property and don’t know about the rent and then lose their home. The Maryland legislature passed new laws last year to correct this, but the land owners have filed lawsuits to block the new law.

So, this is what it looks like: 212 years ago, shoemaker Henry Myers didn’t pay his rent; then blacksmith Michael Myers intervened, to “save” the home. Sure sounds like brothers to me. Here is a section of the topog map showing the close proximity of Woodsboro, Creagerstown, and Michael’s property at Myers Ford. Click on the image to enlarge.

After this transaction, Michael continued buying pieces of land at Hunting Creek. Next post, we will see how the pieces all fit together.

In the previous post, we identified two parcels of land, totaling about 96 acres, that were purchased by Michael Myers. This land was on the wagon road from Frederick to Creagerstown, in the vicinity of Hunting Creek, within one mile of its confluence with the Monocacy River. Yesterday, I revised the previous post to reflect my more accurate understanding of the location of Hunting Creek. While the name does not show up on most lists of Maryland place names, it is indicated on USGS official topographic maps. If this is of importance to you, please reread that post,as revised.

Michael Myers continued to purchase land in the Hunting Creek area. He must have been a pretty successful blacksmith/wagon builder. When he purchased the first parcel in Lisbon, he paid about 9-1/2 pounds. Two years later he paid 470 pounds for the adjacent 94 acres. If I am not mistaken, 470 pounds was a lot of money in 1795, especially for a blacksmith. Perhaps there was dowry money?

In 1796, Michael bought about 12 acres on Little Hunting Creek, a tributary that empties into Hunting Creek about three miles from the mouth. Further research shows that this land was actually on the main branch of Hunting Creek, very near his parcels at Lisbon. More significantly, on 26 May 1797, he purchased a 12-acre portion of  “Hampton Plain,” a tract that lies on the west bank of the Monocacy, at the mouth of Hunting Creek.

Aha! Now we have a precise location for at least one piece of Michael’s land. Mike Pierce, a Maryland land specialist who has been helping me through “Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness,” looked up a topographic map from 1911 at mytopo.com; here is a close-up of the mouth of Hunting Creek:

Eureka! Just yards from the stream’s mouth is a river crossing named “Myers Ford,” a name that had stuck for at least a century after Michael Myers lived there. It makes sense that a wagon maker would set up shop near a river ford, where wagons would be vulnerable to damage. Perhaps Michael even took part in maintaining the crossing, which may have been a formidable job. I may be able to connect this thread later. As icing on the cake, there is also “Shyrocks Mill,” obviously a variant spelling on the surname of the individual from whom Michael bought those first two parcels, Christian Shriock.

A repeated caution, there is no strong indication yet whether or not this is the same Michael Myers who briefly owned a lot in nearby Woodsberry, nor whether either one of them is my 4th great grand-uncle. More work is ahead. Next: Problems for Henry Myers in Woodsberry– Michael to the rescue.

Happy New Year!