Jay Myers

MYERS

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 3/11/2009 at 15:55:04

Jay Myers, the home farm of Mr Myers, situated on Sec 19, Garden township, comprises 130 acres of Iowa’s rich land. Mr Myers is not only well known as an enterprising agriculturist but is also a native son of Boone county, his birth having occurred on the old family homestead on which he is still living August 5, 1858. He is a son of Rev Samuel C Myers, a native of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, who was of German lineage. He was reared and married in the county of his nativity, wedding Miss Martha Sherrick, also a native of Westmoreland county. By trade he was a blacksmith, and for a number of years he also carried on farming and through a long period devoted a portion of his time tot eh ministry. Two children were born unto him and his wife in Pennsylvania, and then they left the Keystone state, removing afterward to Iowa. They cast in their lot with the pioneer settlers of Washington county, where Samuel Myers owned and operated a farm, making his home there on for ten or twelve years. During that time five children were added tot eh family. In 1856 he came to Boone county and pur4chased several hundred acres of land in Garden township. His home was located upon the west side of Sec 19, and there he broke the prairie, built fences and developed an excellent farm of 160 acres. He was on of the prominent agriculturists of Garden township, reared his family there and spent the last years of his life on the old homestead place, where he died about 1864, when Jay Myers was a lad of six or seven years. His wife survived him and with a mother’s loving care reared her family, dying on the seventy-third anniversary of her birth. Jay Myers is the youngest in the family of five sons and three daughters, of whom four sons and two daughters reached years of maturity and are still living. The eldest, Cyrus Myers, was a soldier of the Civil War and is now in the soldiers; Home at Marshalltown, Iowa, Wesley is a resident of Garden township, Aaron is also living in the same township, and Jay is the youngest son. The sisters are. Mrs Sarah Tebus, a widow residing in Garden township and Lizzie the wife of William Munden a farmer in Story county, Iowa.
Jay Myers, grew to manhood upon the old homestead farm in Garden township, remaining with his mother until he had attained his majority, pursuing his education in the common schools. When he had reached mans estate and wished to establish a home of his own he sought a companion and helpmate for lie’s journey and was married in Butler county, Iowa September 3, 1879, to Jennie Owen, a native of New York, born in Broome county, Her father, Benjamin Owen, was also a native of the Empire state and there married Sarah Hulse, whose birth also occurred in Broome county, New York. In 1867 Mr Owen removed with his family to Iowa, settling in Bremer county, where Mrs Myers was reared and educated. He followed farming that county for a number of years and afterward removed to Butler county. In 1880 H and his wife came to Boone county to live with Mrs Myers, and Mrs Owen died August 11, 1901 at the advanced age of eight-nine years. Mr Owen reached the very ripe old age of ninety years in January 1902.
After their marriage our subject and his wife began their domestic life upon the farm where they are now living. Mr Myers there had 80 acres of land upon which a few improvements had been made, but he at once began the further development of the place and soon had his fields under a high state of cultivation. He also built a good residence and barns and added all modern equipments to his place, so that the farm is now a valuable on of the community. In connection with the cultivation of the fields he is engaged in raising a good grade of stock, making a specialty of raising and fattening hogs for the market. He has also bought more land and now has 130 acres in the home place and a 20 acres tract of land and is accounted on of ht prosperous farmers of the community. The home has been blessed with the presence of two children: Estella, who is the wife of Oscar Sander, a resident farmer of Boone county and Eugene, who is now a student in the schools of Madrid.
Politically Mr Myers was originally identified with the Republican party and cast his first ballot for James A Garfield, but eh cause of temperance has always found in him a warm friend and he now endorses the Prohibition party. Political preferment has had no attraction for him, as he has been content to devote his attention to his business affairs. He has always been a warm friend of education and of the public schools and has given his influence toward the promotion of educational work. He is now serving as a school director and exercises his official prerogatives in support of good schools. Both he and his wife were reared in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church of which they are now members. Mr Myers was born here in pioneer times and through all the intervening years he has been a resident of Boone county. The traveler of forty or fifty years ago would hardly have deemed it possible that such great changes could have occurred in this period, but the enterprise and diligence of the citizens have wrought a great transformation and Mr Myers has ever taken his part in this work and fells a just pride in what has been accomplished in his native county.

1902 Boone County History Book