Styer

Harry and Cuba Styer Family
Courtesy: Mike Styer

Like so many in her family, my grandmother, Doris June Styer, was a lifelong Ohioan. Multiple genealogical lines from her lead to Germany, including the Styer family. Unfortunately, the lineage is difficult to trace and extends only to my fourth great grandfather (having made a few assumptions, as well).

GENERATION 1
Henry Styer married Maria BUZZARD. They had at least one child, Henry Styer (my third great grandfather).

GENERATION 2
Henry Styer, the immigrant, was born 12 March 1813 in Germany. From the passenger and immigration lists, we discover that a Bernhard Stahr arrived in Baltimore on 31 May 1834, age 21. I believe that this is my 3great grandfather. Bernhard was born in or resided in Achmer, Germany, and was a peasant. He sojourned to Bremen, Germany where he boarded the Sophie bound for America.

The inference is supported by what we know from family members and is generally supported by census records and other secondary sources.

Henry married Esther SEELY in April 1839 and the couple settled in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. A short biography of Henry appears in the History of Crawford County:

HENRY STYER, farmer, P. O. Troy Centre, is a native of Germany, born March 12. 1813, son of Henry and Maria (Buzzard) Styer, also natives of Germany, who immigrated to America in 1834, and settled in this county, where they died. They bad a family of three sons and. one daughter, of whom our subject only is now living. He came to this country from Germany in 1833, and remained at Meadville, this county, several years; then rented a farm for a few years, and in 1855 purchased land in Troy Township, this county, which he has improved, and where he now resides. Mr. Styer was married, in April, 1839. to Miss Esther Seely, of this county. who was born in Venango County, Penn., November 12, 1812, and whose parents were early settlers in that county, and died there. To our subject and wife were born three sons and four daughters, viz.: Elizabeth (deceased), Anna (deceased), James, Willmina, John, Henry and Mary. Henry, who lives with his father and operates the home farm, was married. December 24, 1876, to Miss Minnie Jackson, a native of this county, born August 17, 1855, and to this union have been born two children: Gladie B. and Noel R. In politics our subject is a Republican.

Of those listed in the above biography, my lineage extends through John.

GENERATION 3
John Styer, born 21 April 1846 in Titusville, Crawford, Pennsylvania, married Martha Ella SMITH in 1879. Martha was born 11 May 1853. Once married, the couple settled in Duke Center, McKean County, Pennsylvania, where John engaged was employed as an oil driller according to the 1880 census.

John's birth in Titusville is curious. On the above biography, we presume that his father rented a farm at Titusville and purchased land in Troy Twp. in 1855 when John was nine. Titusville, in 1859, became a boom town as it was the site of the first commercially drilled oil well in the United States.

Despite his earlier job, oil was not in John's blood. By the 1900 census, he had relocated his family to a farm in Perry Twp., Allen, Ohio. Martha died 1 October 1921 and John, retired from farming, relocated to an apartment in Lima, Allen, Ohio. According to news reports, a window screen worker found the "corpse of John Styer" by peering through the apartment window. John Styer died 2 July 1927.

Children of John and Martha:

     WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON Styer (1880 - 1968)
     Claude John Styer (1881 - )
     Willehemina Georgianna Styer (1883 - )
     Ethel Pearl Styer (1894 - 1988)

GENERATION 4

Cuba Mae and Harry Styer

William Henry Harrison ("Harry") Styer, born 16 April 1880 (alt. 16 Sept. 1880) in Duke Center, McKean, Pennsylvania.  He married Cuba Mae STEVENSON on 24 January 1900 in Wapakoneta, Auglaize, Ohio. Immediately after the wedding, they returned to Perry, Allen, Ohio, and rented from Harry's parents the house next door. By the 1910 census, the couple had relocated to Wayne, Auglaize, Ohio. Ultimately, Harry died in Lima, Allen, Ohio on 27 April 1968.

Cuba Mae Stevenson was born 28 December 1881 to Eli Jasper Stevenson and Catherine Elizabeth Carter. She died in the Lima Memorial Hospital on Christmas Day, 1960.

Children of Harry and Cuba Mae:

     Raymond Leo Styer (1900 - 1968)
     Naola Styer (1902 - 1993)
     Evelyn Styer (1904 - 2000)
     John Howard Styer (1911 - 1987)
     Glenn Darrel Styer (1915 - 1984)
     DORIS JUNE Styer (1918 -2003)
     Robert Dale Styer (1923 - 1987)

Harry's Draft Card (1918)

GENERATION 5
Doris June Styer (aka Grandma) was born 5 June 1918 in Perry Twp., Allen, Ohio. She married George William BRACKNEY on 18 August 1940 in Spencerville, Ohio. She passed away on 9 March 2003.