Pennsylvania
After the end of the Revolution, Philip Myers married Martha Bennet, daughter of a pioneer leader in the fertile Wyoming Valley of northeastern Pennsylvania. His elder brother Lawrence did likewise. As an officer, Lawrence received a substantial land grant for his service. Philip and Martha received a plot of land from her father. Both of them prospered, building up large farms and businesses, including thriving taverns. Among secondary sources, the following has a good bit on Philip:
Philip Myers came to Wyoming in 1785, and was married to Martha, daughter of Thomas Bennett, July 15, 1787, he being aged twenty-seven and she twenty-four years. Thomas Bennett gave his son-in-law a town lot on the north line of old Forty Fort. On this he erected a comfortable house, constructed of yellow pine logs, hewed, and pointed with lime mortar, and limed on the inside. Mr. Myers purchased a lot of one hundred and forty acres, extending from Forty Fort to the top of the mountain. He cleared up his farm, and also raised a large family of children. For many years he kept a public house. His house being situated on an eddy in the Susquehanna, it was a great place of resort for the lumbermen, bringing their pine lumber from the upper part of the Susquehanna and its tributaries and taking it to the Baltimore and Philadelphia markets. The consequence was that Mr. Myers’ house was thronged for weeks by the hardy ” raftsmen ” every spring. He died April 2, 1835. His widow subsequently married Rev. Benjamin A. Bidlack, as his second wife.
It is Philip’s wife Martha, along with her father, Thomas Bennet, whose experiences during the years of Pennamite and Revolutionary wars, including the bloody battle and massacre of July 1778, are minutely detailed in the next dozen pages of the Kulp text, and in a complete book by my distant cousin, the late Charles Myers. Philip and Martha had at least ten children, most of whom grew up and raised families. Many stayed in Luzerne County, which later grew wealthy from coal mining. Philip’s daughter Harriet married her cousin Madison Myers of Maryland; they lived in the home pictured below, located on the Philip Myers property.
Other offspring ventured further west, including our third great-grandfather Lawrence Myers, co-founder (with his brother William) of the historic town of Sunbury, Ohio.\
Philip and Martha Myers were buried at Forty Fort Cemetery; however, their graves were destroyed in the catastrophic flood of 1972. Monuments were erected in another part of the cemetery for Philip, Martha, and Philip’s brothers, Lawrence and Henry Myers.
Thomas Bennet In-Depth « Ole's Blog
Jun 7, 2010
[…] extensive resource up until now. If you were fascinated by the quotes I posted in the series on Philip Myers, and on Thomas and Martha Bennett, I highly recommend this volume. It must be out of print, as […]
Lawrence Myers’ bible « Ole's Blog
Jul 15, 2010
[…] $4.25 must have been quite a chunk of change in 1827. This particular Lawrence Myers was the son of Philip Myers and Martha Bennett Myers. He was born in the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania, and as a young man, […]
Myers’ in the news (c. 1800) « Ole's Blog
Nov 27, 2010
[…] may recall that, according to accounts of Philip and Lawrence from the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania (where the two “removed” after the […]
Myers Land in Maryland « Ole's Blog
Dec 11, 2010
[…] discovery raises some hard questions. As we have explored in depth, Lawrence and Philip both settled in the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania after the Revolutionary […]
Madison Myers, the Link « Ole's Blog
Jan 18, 2011
[…] 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 […]
Kelly Gatzke
Aug 14, 2020
Hi George, I am researching my friend’s ancestry for her and am curious about something. Have you ever seen anything about Philip Myers (1759-1835) having a mulatto son named Philip Adolphus Myers? According to Ancestry, Philip A Myers was born in 1790 in Forty Fort and died about 1858 in Ohio. One of the profiles I found on Ancestry said he was mulatto, not really sure where that evidence came from. Anyhow, I was just curious if you had seen the name Philip Adolphus before and if I was following the correct lineage. Thanks!
George
Aug 14, 2020
I have never heard of this Philip Adolphus Myers. He is not mentioned in any printed sources I studied about the early families of Forty Fort. I will try to find what you found on Ancestry; I’d have to see some source citations to put much stock in it. I moved your comment to the page profiling Philip Myers (1759-1835)
Kelly Gatzke
Oct 4, 2020
Thank you George for commenting in return. The more research I have done, I don’t think the Myers I am looking for descends from this Philip Myers or even Philip Adolphus Myers.
I still wanted to send you the Ancestry link for the Philip Adolphus Myers that shows this Philip as his father and Martha as his mother. https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/46301657/person/24438671753/facts
Thank you for such a wonderful website! I wish our Myers came from these amazing people!
Jessica L Myers
Jan 2, 2022
Hello! I’m a descendent of Harriet and Madison Myers–Philip Myers’s daughter and nephew. (Dr. Charles Myers, the one who wrote A Connecticut Yankee in Penn’s woods, was my grandfather.) Is it possible to get a digital copy of the Madison Myers Bible–and who is Tom Welch of Chicago? Any way to get in touch with him?