Hans Meyer, the pioneer ancestor and great-great-grandfather of Christian M. MYERS, enigrated from Germany or Switzerland, about the year, 1718, and in 1729 purchased a plantation in Skippack township, Philadelphia (now Montgom­ery) county, in that part later incor­porated into Upper Salford township, stilt in the occupancy of his great-grand son. Hans MEYER was a Mennonite and one of the pioneer settlers in that lo­cality. He was married before emi­grating to America, and brought with him his eldest son Henry, then but a year old. Six other children were born to him in Pennsylvania, viz.: John, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch; Barbara, who married John FRETZ, another pioneer in Bedminster; Jacob, who enlisted in the colonial war of 1756, and never returned; Elizabeth, who married Christian STOVER; Anna, who married Jacob BEIDLER, and became the ancestress of Mrs. Christian M. MYERS; and Hester, who married Nich­olas LEAR.

John MEYER, born about 1720, settled in Bedminster township soon after at­taining manhood, on land owned by William ALLEN, Esq., which he later pur­chased. In 1762 be purchased a farm of two hundred acres in Plumatead township where be resided the remainder of his life. He was a farmer and blacksmith by occupation, and a member of the Mennonite congregation at Deep Run. He married a widow NASH, whose maiden name was SENSENICH, and they were the parents of six children, Henry, Abraham, and Christian, all of whom learned their father’s trade and followed it in connection with farming. in Plumstead: Hester and Mary, who lived to an advanced age, but never married; and Barbara, who married Charles DYER.

Christian MYERS, son of John, and the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born on the old Plumstead home­stead, April 24, 1772, and later purchased it, lived there all his life. He followed blacksmithing for many years in the old smith-shop built by his father He married Hanna DERSTEIN, of Rockhill, where her ancestors were early settlers, born January 12, 1778, died August 27, 1848, and they were the parents of seven children, viz.:Amos, born 1800, died 1825, unmarried; John.died in infancy; Catharine, born February 14, 1803, married Abraham WISMER; Michael, born May 9, 1804, re­moved to Fairfield county, Ohio, where he died in 1889; Samuel, the father of the subject of this sketch; Abraham, born 1807, died 1834, unmarried; Charles, who married Susan MYERS and left several sons still residing in Bucks county; and Isaac, who died in 1845, leaving an only daughter, Hannah WOLFASBERGER, of Philadelphia. Christian MYERS, the father, died November 15, 1850.

Samuel MYERS, son of Christian and Hanna (DERSTEIN) MYERS was born on the old homestead in Plumstead, De­cember 27, 1805, and lived there all his life, dying February 4, 1879. He prob­ably learned the blacksmith trade with his father, but never followed it fur­ther than to do his own work in that line. He was a mechanical genius, do­ing his own shoe and harness making, and manufacturing most of the imple­ments of husbandry needed on the farm. Those were the days when the farmer was almost independent of the outside world except for the luxuries of life. Mr. MYERS raised and prepared the flax and wool for the spinning wheel, and the clothes of the family were exclu­sively the product of the spinning of Mrs. MYERS, and the weaving of the father Samuel MYERS married Decem­ber 24, 1835, Susanna NASH, born De­cember 30, 1810, daughter of Jacob and

Elizabeth (MEYERS) NASH the latter be­ing also a descendant of Hans MEYER, the emigrant, through his eldest son Henry, who married Barbara MILLER, and their son Henry, born 1750, (died in Plumstead) who married Susan SMITH. Elizabeth (MEYER) NASH, the daughter of the last named Henry, was born August 16, 1786, and married Jacob NASH, of Tinicum son of Joseph NASH, and grand­son of William NASH, another pioneer of Bedminster. Samuel and Susanna (NASH) MYERS were the parents of eight children, viz.: Hannah, died in infancy; Tobias N., married Rosanna KRATZ, and lived for a time in Plumstead, now a resident of Philadelphia; Jacob, married Maria MYERS, and resides in Hilltown, Bucks county; Christian M., the sub­ject of this sketch; Amos, married Hilda MYERS, and resides on the homestead in Plumstead, being the fourth generation in the township; Elizabeth, died at the age of nineteen years; Anna, widow of David KRATZ; and Charles, deceased. Samuel MYERS was a member of the old Deep Run Mennonite congregation, and a man much respected in the commun­ity. He never held or sought office.

Christian M. MYERS son of Samuel and Susanna (NASH) MYERS, who born April 29, 1841, on the old homestead in Plumstead, and educated at the public schools. He inherited the mechanical genius of his father, and made the first hay rake and bay drag used on the borne farm, as well as a number of other im­plements of husbandry, and, in the ear­lier years of the conduct of the mill where he now resides, he dressed his own mill picks and did the necessary millwrighting about the mill. On his marriage in 1863 be took charge of the Stover mill, on Tobickon creek, in Bedminster township, near Pipersville, Pennsylvania, belonging to hi. father-in-law, Samuel STOVER, and conducted ft until 1904, keeping in pace with the times in the installation of improved machinery, having in 1885, equipped the mill with the latest improved roller process for the manufacture of flour, and again in 1903, installed the Gyrator system of bolting and other improvements. In 1904 he retired and turned the business over to Norman L. WORMAN, who bad been his foreman and head miller for many years, and who is now doing a flourishing business there. Mr.MYERS is a strong advocate of higher education, and has given each of his sons a col­lege education. He and his wife are not members of any church, but are liberal supporters of church, Sabbath school and charitable work, and to which and the temperance cause they have devoted much time and labor. Mr MYERS mar­ried, February 7, 1863, Eliza Beidler STOVER, born February 32, 1844, daugh­ter of Samuel and Anna (BEIDLER) STOVER, an account of whose ancestry fol­lows, and they are parents of three sons, viz.: I. Samuel Horace MYERS, born May 9, 1864 a graduate of Lafayette Col­lege, class of 1888, and of the law de­partment of the University of Pennsyl­vania, July 17, 1892, He was admit­ted to the Philadelphia born in 1892, and has since practiced there with success. He married; February 22, 1893, Elean­or Matilda STOVER, daughter of Isaac S. and Ellen A. (CAPNER) STOVER, and they are the parents of one daughter Roberta Eliza Myers, born October 1897. 2. Hugh Ely MYERS, born August 30, 1871, graduated at Lafayette Col­lege June 21 1893, took a two years poet-graduate course there in chemistry and is now employed as chemist with the United Engineering and Foundry Company, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.3. Ira Stover MYERS, born August 3, 1876, educated at Germantown Academy and Lafayette College, graduated at College in class of 1898, is now in the office of his brother, Samuel Horace in Philadelphia

Eliza B. (STOVER) MYERS, the wife of Christian M. MYERS, is descended from pioneer settlers in Bucks and Montgomery counties, who have been prominently identified with the settle­ment and development of the native resources of the county, Henry STAUFFER, (as the name STOVER was then spelled) Mrs. Myers’ paternal ancestor, was born and reared in Alsace or Man­beim, Rhenish Prussia, and married there in 1749, Barbara HOCKMAN, and accompanied by Christian, Daniel and Ulrich STAUFFER, probabl₇ his brothers and Ulrich HOCKMAN, his wife’s broth­er, sailed for Pennsylvania in the ship “St. Andrew,” Captain James ABERCROMBIE, from Rotterdam, arriving in Phil­adelphia on September 9, 1749. He lo­cated in Bedminster township on the ALLEN tract, where he purchased 213 acres of land June 12, 1762, having pre­viously resided for a time among his compatriots on the Shippack in Mont­gomery county. The Bedminster home­stead remained the property of his de­scendants for nearly a century, having been sold by Reuben STOVER, a great-­grandson, in 1860 to Joseph SINE. The children of Henry and Barbara (HOCKMAN) STAUFFER, were: i. Ulrich, born July 16, married Barbara SWARTZ, and died on the homestead November 2, 1811. 2. Barbara, died young. 3. Henry, born July 10, 1754, married Elizabeth PRETZ, and settled near Bursonville, Springfield township. 4. Jacob, see for­ward. 5. Ralph, born June 10, 1760, died November 7, 1811, married Catharine FUNK; was a very prominent man, jus­tice of the peace, member of assembly and one of the first board of directors of the poor of Bucks county.

Jacob STOVER, third son of Henry and Barbara, born May 13, 1757, was reared in Bedminster township. During the war of the Revolution his father’s team and wagon was pressed into the service of the continental army under General SULLIVAN, and Jacob, a lad of sixteen years, accompanied it in the Jersey campaign, and endured many hardships.

He purchased the mill property now owned by the subject of this sketch, December 27, 1784, and resided there the remainder of his life, dying April 28, 1844. He married (first) Elizabeth SWARTZ, and had by her one daughter, Elizabeth, who married Philip KRATZ. He married (second) Catharine STAUFFER, daughter of Mathias and Anna (CLEMENS) STAUFFER, who kept an inn in colonial times on their farm in Lower Salford, Montgomery county, where of­ficers of WASHINGTON’S army were en­tertained and sheltered by them after the battle of Germantown. Mathias STAUFFER was a son of Christian STAUFFER, JR., who died in Lower Salford in 1781, and a grandson of Christian STAUFFER, a pioneer emigrant, who purchased 150 acres at the present site of Harleysville, Montgomery county, and died there in 1735, leaving a large family of children of whom Christian, Jr., was the eldest, and settled in Lower Salford in 1736.  Jacob and Catharine STOVER were the parents of eight children: Henry S., born October 17, 1786, died at Erwinna, Aug­ust 19, 1872, married Barbara STOUT; Mathias, born April 28, 1789, died June 4, 1807; Anna, born 1791, married David WROMAN, a tanner, at Parkerford, Ches­ter county, Pennsylvania; Jacob born July 12, 1794, died March 30, 1856, married Sarah TREICHLER; Abraham died young; Catherine, born August 12, 1799, married Henry FUNK and removed to Northumberland county; Jonas, born February 27, 1802, died 1855, a miller at Church Hill, Bucks county; Samuel, see forward; and Isaac, born March 13, 1806, died January 2!, 1876, miller at Carversville, married Elizabeth WISMER..

Text taken from page 224-226 of:

Davis, William W. H., A.M., History of BucksCounty, Pennsylvania [New York-Chicago: the Lewis Publishing Company, 1905] volume III

Transcribed April 2001 by Judy Jackson of  MO as part of the Bucks Co., Pa., Early Family Project, www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/bucksindex.html