Samuel's story really begins with his grandfather, Samuel Byerley (1796-1870), for whom he was named. Grandfather Samuel was the youngest of 12 children born to Thomas Byerley and Frances Bruckland. Great-grandfather Thomas Byerley passed away before his youngest son Samuel's 14th birthday. Grandfather Samuel's obituary years later would make much of this fact, implying that Grandfather Samuel was a self-educated youth; however this epitaph overlooks the fact that six of Samuel's older sisters were educators who founded a boarding school for girls, and his great-uncle was Josiah Wedgwood, whose descendants did not abandon their fatherless cousin. The Byerleys of England were men of good standing in military service to the Crown, and they enjoyed relatively fine material comforts of the day.
After serving as dispatch courier to Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, Grandfather Samuel traveled Europe extensively, settling in the port city of Trieste, where he obtained a partnership in a mercantile concern. It was in Trieste that he met Henrietta Holzknecht, daughter of Franz Holzknecht and Maria Hofer of Tyrol. Henrietta was the niece of Andreas Hofer, who was martyred for leading the Tryolean rebellion of 1809(1). Grandfather Samuel married Henrietta Holzknecht, and their first two children were born in Austria.
They moved to his native England before the birth of their third child, Caroline Josephine, in 1831(2). In 1832, Grandfather Samuel came to the United States, bringing his son Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, with him. He had secured a position with Howell & Apinwall in New York, one of the largest shipping companies in the United States, engaged extensively in international trade. He brought the rest of his family over, and he became a US citizen in 1838.
Grandfather Samuel converted to his wife's religion, Catholicism, and in 1841, he and his wife hosted a contingent of priests from the Congregation of the Holy Cross at their home in New York. The fathers were on their way to Indiana, where the Bishop of Vincennes had granted the order 524 acres in the Indiana mission fields. Thomas, who received his education in Poughkeepsie, NY and Emmitsburg, MD, went with Father Sorin and the brothers from the order to Indiana, where he helped them to build the first log church at what would later become the University of Notre Dame. By 1843, Grandfather Samuel had amassed a small fortune, and at age fifty, opted to retire to South Bend, Indiana, where he spent the remainder of his days enjoying his children, studying, and engaging in horticultural pursuits. He and his wife were benefactors of the University of Notre Dame.
Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, was the second child born to Samuel Byerley and Henrietta Holzknecht. In 1845, at the age of seventeen, Thomas accompanied Father Sorin to Dowagiac, Michigan, where he stood sponsor for a number of Native American children baptized by Father Sorin. In 1854, Thomas went to Chicago, where he was employed as a bookkeeper. He married Margaret Garrett of Chicago that year. His first wife passed away a little over a year later. There were no children born of this union. Thomas married 2nd Anne Rooney of New York, and they returned to Indiana to start their life together.
From the Byerleys, Grandfather Samuel brought to the family Unitarian philosophy, scientific curiosity, respect for military service and business acumen. From the Holzknechts, Henrietta brought devout Catholicism, rigorous defense of the principles of freedom, and an extraordinary sense of civic-mindedness. It was into this environment that Samuel Byerley, our subject, was born on March 8, 1858 in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Samuel was the first born son of Thomas Byerley, an Austrian native, born to auspicious parents, and Anne Rooney, a native of Ireland. In the early years of his second marriage, Thomas traveled from Indiana to Pike's Peak, and then to Kansas, before settling down with his young family in South Bend, where he began his fruit-growing business. Following a succession of four infant siblings who did not survive their first year, sister Tillie arrived in 1866, and brother Thomas two years later. Samuel also had a wealth of cousins for companionship, and many other pioneering families made their home in South Bend. The railroad was well established by the time Samuel was born, making travel between Indiana and Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio convenient and easy.
On January 28, 1878, Samuel Byerley and Blanche S. Bope obtained a license to marry from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for St. Joseph County, Indiana(3), and were married by the priest of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in South Bend the following day. Samuel and Blanche(4) can be found in Portage at his father's farm with their daughter, Mary, born May 10, 1879, in the 1880 US Census. Sam was working as a clerk for the railroad at the time.
Samuel and Blanche would have two additional children: Blanche A., born in September 1881, and Philip Joseph, born in September 1884, before Samuel's wife Blanche passed away in November 1884. Samuel married 2nd Lillian Tutt Curtis in Chicago in 1888. Lillian had grown up in South Bend, and was married briefly to Robert W. Curtis.
Samuel seems to have inherited his forbears' passion for adventure and travel. It is not known to this researcher what occupational endeavors he engaged in other than clerk for the railroad in 1880, and the subsequent census record documentations of manager (1900 - US Census), stock broker (1910 - US Census) and music publisher (1915 - NJ Census). In addition to his three children from his first marriage, Samuel and Lillian brought up three children of their own: Vera (b. 1889 in IN), Cecil (b. Feb. 1, 1893 IL), and Evelyn Hope (b. circa Apr. 1897 MO). There is no indication where the family resided between the years 1880 and 1900, other than the birthplaces of the children. By 1900, Mary was teaching school in Indiana, and Philip, age 16, was a student, both residing with their grandparents (although inexplicably misidentified as Thomas' daughter, Mary A., and stepson Philip J. in this record(5)), while their parents and siblings had removed to New Jersey. By 1910, Mary and Philip had moved to Chicago, where Mary worked as a public school teacher, and Philip had entered the automobile industry as a machinist.
Samuel's father retired from farming and began cultivating flowers. He named his parcel "Roselawn", and the South Bend neighborhood in the vicinity of his blooms wanted to adopt the name for their town, but since Roselawn was already taken by another Indiana town, they opted for "Roseland" instead. It is still called that today, in his honor.
Sister Tillie married George Foster, a freight clerk for the railroad, and they chose to remain in Indiana, first in Portage, then in Roseland, at 205 W. Cripe Street, in a house built in 1912 that is still standing to this day. They had four children. Brother Thomas, Jr. stayed in the South Bend area, and was engaged in the shipping industry, like his grandfather before him, until he passed away in 1907.
Samuel's daughter Mary Anna returned to Indiana to be closer to her grandfather in the later years of his life (her grandmother had passed away in 1909). She lived in the house at 114 Chapin Street (which was built in 1903 and is still standing) through the 1920s, according to census records and her passport records. Still teaching, Mary traveled quite a bit in the summer months of the 1930s, including trips abroad to England and France. By then she had moved to an apartment at 115 N. William Street, which is also still standing, but is now an office complex known as The Prairie Building. By 1940, she had moved to an apartment at The Rushton. Built in 1906, The Rushton was considered South Bend’s first “skyscraper”, and housed real estate agents, clerks, managers, lawyers and teachers in its 35 apartments. Eventually abandoned in the early 2000s, the Rushton spent over a decade awaiting a new purpose. Secured by Indiana Landmarks in 2005, and purchased by South Bend Heritage in 2012, The Rushton is once again a prominent fixture of downtown South Bend.
Samuel's daughter Blanche took an interest in fine art, and established herself as an international connoisseur, arranging exhibits and sales at home and abroad. She also opened her own lecture bureau in New York City. She married Lt. Commander Charles Felton Pousland, US Navy, in 1933.
Son Philip was born a year before Karl Benz invented the gasoline powered automobile engine, and Philip and the automobile grew up together. Thus, it is fitting that he chose automobile manufacture as his vocation. It is possible that he started his career at Studebaker in Indiana. In 1910, he was working at a machine shop in Chicago. He and his sister, Mary Anna, shared living quarters in Chicago, and he returned with her to South Bend after 1910. Later, Philip moved to Detroit to work for Packard Motor Car Company. In 1919, Philip traveled to war-torn Europe with the Knights of Columbus to engage in relief work. Upon his return, he and his bride, Christine, who was born in France, acquired property in Elkhart, Indiana and engaged in farming.
This researcher acknowledges taking the liberty of assuming that Mary Anna and Philip were both children of Samuel and Blanche Bope Byerley. There is no publicly accessible birth record for either, or for their sister, Blanche A. Mary resided with Samuel and Blanche in 1880. Mary is later referenced as Philip's "sister" in the 1910 US Census taken in Chicago, where they shared a residence at that time. While Blanche Byerley Pousland is clearly identified as the daughter of Samuel Byerley and Blanche Bope in her marriage record to Charles Pousland, this is not the case with Philip and Mary. The mother of the three offspring is identified in later census records as having hailed from Indiana or Illinois, which is inconsistent with records accumulated while Blanche Bope Byerley was alive. They are acknowledged as grandchildren in Thomas Byerley's obituary, and Samuel is clearly identified as Philip's father in his passport application. Philip's WW I draft registration lists his next of kin as "Mrs. Mary Byerley" of 732 W. Washington Street, South Bend. Although his sister, Mary, had moved to South Bend from Chicago prior to the draft, to the best of this researcher's knowledge, she was never married, and did not live on Washington Street until the late 1930s according to her passport and census records. This street address was the residence of Samuel's Aunt Matilda Byerley O'Brien, however. If there was an additional wife, Mary, of Samuel Byerley, (born perhaps in Illinois?) this researcher is unable to find record of same.
Of the three children from his second marriage, daughter Vera Byerley married 1st Guillermo Lavergne (b. circa 1876 in St. Thomas, Dutch West Indies, widower of Brigida Yordán de Lavergne) in Manhattan on May 15, 1907. Three of Guillermo's children, Nelson, Edwin and "Emelendo", resided with Lillian and Samuel in New York in 1910. (Vera and Guillermo are counted as guests at the Hotel Lucerne in Manhattan in this particular census). Vera Byerley Lavergne, widow, married 2nd Oswald Lindo (b. Panama) on November 21, 1919 in Manhattan. Of note is a minor child with the surname Lindo, born in the West Indies, who also resided as a 'lodger' with Samuel and Lillian Byerley in 1910. It is unknown to this researcher if he was related to Vera's second husband. Vera and Oswald divorced before 1930, and in 1933, Vera married 3rd a divorcee, Dr. Fenwick Beekman, a renowned New York surgeon.
Son Cecil married divorcee Ethel Dorothy _____ MacKenzie, called 'Dorothy', in Manhattan on April 24, 1937, and they made their home in Westchester, New York. Cecil passed away in January 1966 in New York. His wife Dorothy passed away in January 1992 in Westchester.
Daughter Evelyn married Lt. Commander Jay Knight Esler, US Navy, on Dec. 6, 1916 in Washington, D.C., and Samuel resided with them in Annapolis after his wife Lillian passed away. Evelyn and Jay had at least two children, Jay Knight Esler, Jr. (b. circa 1923 in New York) and Vera (b. circa 1928 in France). Evelyn and Jay later divorced, and Evelyn married 2nd Hainer Hinshaw, son of Stephen Curtis Hinshaw and Hannah Brickell. Commander Knight remarried to the widow of Dr Floyd Merrell Dondanville, Sr. Hainer passed away in Michigan in 1965. Evelyn passed away in Michigan in 1971.
(1) The information that Mrs. Henrietta Byerley was the niece of Andreas Hofer comes from Grandfather Samuel's obituary, published in the Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 39, Number 5927, on March 26, 1870, and re-printed in multiple reference sources on the history of South Bend, Indiana. She is identified in the obituary as a native of Tyrol, and niece of Hofer. Her maiden name appears in a variety of sources (and with a variety of spellings), to wit: in her son Francis Xavier Byerley's death record "Hennretta Hallschnght"; in the baptismal record of her daughter Caroline Josephine Byerley from England "Henriettæ Holskrecht"; and in the death record of her daughter Matilda Byerley O'Brien "Henrietta Holzknecht". Any student of history who is cognizant of Andeas Hofer is equally familiar with his uncle, Johann Holzknecht, who served with him in the uprising. Johann Holzknecht was the uncle of Hofer by virtue of the fact that he married his aunt. After the battle was lost and Hofer killed, Holzknecht went to Trieste, where his brother Franz had moved his family. Franz Holzknecht was married to Maria Hofer, sister of Andreas, making Franz's children nieces and nephews of Andreas Hofer. Henrietta, whose maiden name is established in the aforementioned records, was a native of Tyrol living in Trieste at the time of the uprising in Tyrol. It is doubtful that she made up the story that she was Hofer's niece. Franz Holknecht is the only person of that surname who married a Hofer sister, thus making Franz and Maria the likely parents of Henrietta.
(2) Most American records state that Josephine C. Byerley was born between 1835 and 1838 in New York, however the christening of Carolina Josephine took place in England on September 21, 1831. It is possible that these are two distinct daughters. It was not possible for this researcher to trace this daughter, Carolina Josephine, after her christening. The next record of the family is in South Bend in 1850, at which time Carolina could have been married or passed away.
(3) This record can be observed at:
"Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZC2-8HW : 10 December 2017), Samuel Byerly and Blanche S Bope, 29 Jan 1878; citing St. Joseph, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,503,391.
Although it is clearly stamped "Unofficial Record", in light of all other evidence surrounding the couple and their subsequent children, it can be viewed as factual information.
(4) Blanche's origins and parentage are indeterminate from available public records. In the 1880 US Census, her birthplace is given as Ohio, and that of her parents as Prussia. In the 1870 US Census, there is a young lady of the same age named Blanche Bope residing in St. Joseph County, Indiana with one Jacob and "Nanny" Bope, and other siblings; however, Jacob's birthplace is listed as "Pennsylvania" and Nanny's is listed as "New York", which is inconsistent with the information in the 1880 Census. There are Bope families represented in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, but none with a Jacob of the same age as Jacob Bope in Indiana in 1870. This is the only census record that he appears in. The rest of the Bope family in the 1870 Census seem to evaporate as well. The only other record of a Jacob Bope this researcher could find in Indiana is a couple of patents issued in 1872 to Jacob W. Bope and a collaborator, C. Aultman, for harvester reels. To complicate matters further, documentation of Blanche's children, Mary, Philip and Blanche, in subsequent US Census records, lists "Indiana" or "Illinois" as the birthplace of their mother in censuses in which they appear after 1880. There is a Mary C. Bope born April 17, 1872 in Bucyrus, Crawford County, Ohio to "J. W. Bope and Nancy W. Clute". J. W. and Nancy do not seem to fit with any of the other better documented Bope families, but they could conceivably be the parents from the 1870 record in Indiana. A "Laura D. Bope", daughter of "J. W. and N. W. Bope" passes away in Lima, Ohio on March 1, 1876 at age 12, and this would be consistent with the Laura in the 1870 record in Indiana, however her birth place is listed as Louisville, KY, and all of the children in the 1870 Indiana record were listed as having been born in Ohio. A Jacob Bope passes away in Ohio in 1872 who is not further documented elsewhere, however no city or county or interment reference is given in the record. And finally, a "Nancy W. Clute" b. Livingston County, NY gives birth to Charles Alexander Miller in Corning, Adams County, Iowa on July 26, 1881, which would be consistent with Nancy having a maiden name of Clute, being from New York, and first husband Jacob passing away in Ohio in 1872, but Miller being a common surname, it is difficult to take this research further. A Charles Alexander Miller of the same birth date and place later marries one Ottillie B. ____ and resides with her in Passaic, New Jersey.
(5) Special thanks to jcrow for sending a copy of this record.
After serving as dispatch courier to Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, Grandfather Samuel traveled Europe extensively, settling in the port city of Trieste, where he obtained a partnership in a mercantile concern. It was in Trieste that he met Henrietta Holzknecht, daughter of Franz Holzknecht and Maria Hofer of Tyrol. Henrietta was the niece of Andreas Hofer, who was martyred for leading the Tryolean rebellion of 1809(1). Grandfather Samuel married Henrietta Holzknecht, and their first two children were born in Austria.
They moved to his native England before the birth of their third child, Caroline Josephine, in 1831(2). In 1832, Grandfather Samuel came to the United States, bringing his son Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, with him. He had secured a position with Howell & Apinwall in New York, one of the largest shipping companies in the United States, engaged extensively in international trade. He brought the rest of his family over, and he became a US citizen in 1838.
Grandfather Samuel converted to his wife's religion, Catholicism, and in 1841, he and his wife hosted a contingent of priests from the Congregation of the Holy Cross at their home in New York. The fathers were on their way to Indiana, where the Bishop of Vincennes had granted the order 524 acres in the Indiana mission fields. Thomas, who received his education in Poughkeepsie, NY and Emmitsburg, MD, went with Father Sorin and the brothers from the order to Indiana, where he helped them to build the first log church at what would later become the University of Notre Dame. By 1843, Grandfather Samuel had amassed a small fortune, and at age fifty, opted to retire to South Bend, Indiana, where he spent the remainder of his days enjoying his children, studying, and engaging in horticultural pursuits. He and his wife were benefactors of the University of Notre Dame.
Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, was the second child born to Samuel Byerley and Henrietta Holzknecht. In 1845, at the age of seventeen, Thomas accompanied Father Sorin to Dowagiac, Michigan, where he stood sponsor for a number of Native American children baptized by Father Sorin. In 1854, Thomas went to Chicago, where he was employed as a bookkeeper. He married Margaret Garrett of Chicago that year. His first wife passed away a little over a year later. There were no children born of this union. Thomas married 2nd Anne Rooney of New York, and they returned to Indiana to start their life together.
From the Byerleys, Grandfather Samuel brought to the family Unitarian philosophy, scientific curiosity, respect for military service and business acumen. From the Holzknechts, Henrietta brought devout Catholicism, rigorous defense of the principles of freedom, and an extraordinary sense of civic-mindedness. It was into this environment that Samuel Byerley, our subject, was born on March 8, 1858 in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Samuel was the first born son of Thomas Byerley, an Austrian native, born to auspicious parents, and Anne Rooney, a native of Ireland. In the early years of his second marriage, Thomas traveled from Indiana to Pike's Peak, and then to Kansas, before settling down with his young family in South Bend, where he began his fruit-growing business. Following a succession of four infant siblings who did not survive their first year, sister Tillie arrived in 1866, and brother Thomas two years later. Samuel also had a wealth of cousins for companionship, and many other pioneering families made their home in South Bend. The railroad was well established by the time Samuel was born, making travel between Indiana and Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio convenient and easy.
On January 28, 1878, Samuel Byerley and Blanche S. Bope obtained a license to marry from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for St. Joseph County, Indiana(3), and were married by the priest of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in South Bend the following day. Samuel and Blanche(4) can be found in Portage at his father's farm with their daughter, Mary, born May 10, 1879, in the 1880 US Census. Sam was working as a clerk for the railroad at the time.
Samuel and Blanche would have two additional children: Blanche A., born in September 1881, and Philip Joseph, born in September 1884, before Samuel's wife Blanche passed away in November 1884. Samuel married 2nd Lillian Tutt Curtis in Chicago in 1888. Lillian had grown up in South Bend, and was married briefly to Robert W. Curtis.
Samuel seems to have inherited his forbears' passion for adventure and travel. It is not known to this researcher what occupational endeavors he engaged in other than clerk for the railroad in 1880, and the subsequent census record documentations of manager (1900 - US Census), stock broker (1910 - US Census) and music publisher (1915 - NJ Census). In addition to his three children from his first marriage, Samuel and Lillian brought up three children of their own: Vera (b. 1889 in IN), Cecil (b. Feb. 1, 1893 IL), and Evelyn Hope (b. circa Apr. 1897 MO). There is no indication where the family resided between the years 1880 and 1900, other than the birthplaces of the children. By 1900, Mary was teaching school in Indiana, and Philip, age 16, was a student, both residing with their grandparents (although inexplicably misidentified as Thomas' daughter, Mary A., and stepson Philip J. in this record(5)), while their parents and siblings had removed to New Jersey. By 1910, Mary and Philip had moved to Chicago, where Mary worked as a public school teacher, and Philip had entered the automobile industry as a machinist.
Samuel's father retired from farming and began cultivating flowers. He named his parcel "Roselawn", and the South Bend neighborhood in the vicinity of his blooms wanted to adopt the name for their town, but since Roselawn was already taken by another Indiana town, they opted for "Roseland" instead. It is still called that today, in his honor.
Sister Tillie married George Foster, a freight clerk for the railroad, and they chose to remain in Indiana, first in Portage, then in Roseland, at 205 W. Cripe Street, in a house built in 1912 that is still standing to this day. They had four children. Brother Thomas, Jr. stayed in the South Bend area, and was engaged in the shipping industry, like his grandfather before him, until he passed away in 1907.
Samuel's daughter Mary Anna returned to Indiana to be closer to her grandfather in the later years of his life (her grandmother had passed away in 1909). She lived in the house at 114 Chapin Street (which was built in 1903 and is still standing) through the 1920s, according to census records and her passport records. Still teaching, Mary traveled quite a bit in the summer months of the 1930s, including trips abroad to England and France. By then she had moved to an apartment at 115 N. William Street, which is also still standing, but is now an office complex known as The Prairie Building. By 1940, she had moved to an apartment at The Rushton. Built in 1906, The Rushton was considered South Bend’s first “skyscraper”, and housed real estate agents, clerks, managers, lawyers and teachers in its 35 apartments. Eventually abandoned in the early 2000s, the Rushton spent over a decade awaiting a new purpose. Secured by Indiana Landmarks in 2005, and purchased by South Bend Heritage in 2012, The Rushton is once again a prominent fixture of downtown South Bend.
Samuel's daughter Blanche took an interest in fine art, and established herself as an international connoisseur, arranging exhibits and sales at home and abroad. She also opened her own lecture bureau in New York City. She married Lt. Commander Charles Felton Pousland, US Navy, in 1933.
Son Philip was born a year before Karl Benz invented the gasoline powered automobile engine, and Philip and the automobile grew up together. Thus, it is fitting that he chose automobile manufacture as his vocation. It is possible that he started his career at Studebaker in Indiana. In 1910, he was working at a machine shop in Chicago. He and his sister, Mary Anna, shared living quarters in Chicago, and he returned with her to South Bend after 1910. Later, Philip moved to Detroit to work for Packard Motor Car Company. In 1919, Philip traveled to war-torn Europe with the Knights of Columbus to engage in relief work. Upon his return, he and his bride, Christine, who was born in France, acquired property in Elkhart, Indiana and engaged in farming.
This researcher acknowledges taking the liberty of assuming that Mary Anna and Philip were both children of Samuel and Blanche Bope Byerley. There is no publicly accessible birth record for either, or for their sister, Blanche A. Mary resided with Samuel and Blanche in 1880. Mary is later referenced as Philip's "sister" in the 1910 US Census taken in Chicago, where they shared a residence at that time. While Blanche Byerley Pousland is clearly identified as the daughter of Samuel Byerley and Blanche Bope in her marriage record to Charles Pousland, this is not the case with Philip and Mary. The mother of the three offspring is identified in later census records as having hailed from Indiana or Illinois, which is inconsistent with records accumulated while Blanche Bope Byerley was alive. They are acknowledged as grandchildren in Thomas Byerley's obituary, and Samuel is clearly identified as Philip's father in his passport application. Philip's WW I draft registration lists his next of kin as "Mrs. Mary Byerley" of 732 W. Washington Street, South Bend. Although his sister, Mary, had moved to South Bend from Chicago prior to the draft, to the best of this researcher's knowledge, she was never married, and did not live on Washington Street until the late 1930s according to her passport and census records. This street address was the residence of Samuel's Aunt Matilda Byerley O'Brien, however. If there was an additional wife, Mary, of Samuel Byerley, (born perhaps in Illinois?) this researcher is unable to find record of same.
Of the three children from his second marriage, daughter Vera Byerley married 1st Guillermo Lavergne (b. circa 1876 in St. Thomas, Dutch West Indies, widower of Brigida Yordán de Lavergne) in Manhattan on May 15, 1907. Three of Guillermo's children, Nelson, Edwin and "Emelendo", resided with Lillian and Samuel in New York in 1910. (Vera and Guillermo are counted as guests at the Hotel Lucerne in Manhattan in this particular census). Vera Byerley Lavergne, widow, married 2nd Oswald Lindo (b. Panama) on November 21, 1919 in Manhattan. Of note is a minor child with the surname Lindo, born in the West Indies, who also resided as a 'lodger' with Samuel and Lillian Byerley in 1910. It is unknown to this researcher if he was related to Vera's second husband. Vera and Oswald divorced before 1930, and in 1933, Vera married 3rd a divorcee, Dr. Fenwick Beekman, a renowned New York surgeon.
Son Cecil married divorcee Ethel Dorothy _____ MacKenzie, called 'Dorothy', in Manhattan on April 24, 1937, and they made their home in Westchester, New York. Cecil passed away in January 1966 in New York. His wife Dorothy passed away in January 1992 in Westchester.
Daughter Evelyn married Lt. Commander Jay Knight Esler, US Navy, on Dec. 6, 1916 in Washington, D.C., and Samuel resided with them in Annapolis after his wife Lillian passed away. Evelyn and Jay had at least two children, Jay Knight Esler, Jr. (b. circa 1923 in New York) and Vera (b. circa 1928 in France). Evelyn and Jay later divorced, and Evelyn married 2nd Hainer Hinshaw, son of Stephen Curtis Hinshaw and Hannah Brickell. Commander Knight remarried to the widow of Dr Floyd Merrell Dondanville, Sr. Hainer passed away in Michigan in 1965. Evelyn passed away in Michigan in 1971.
(1) The information that Mrs. Henrietta Byerley was the niece of Andreas Hofer comes from Grandfather Samuel's obituary, published in the Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 39, Number 5927, on March 26, 1870, and re-printed in multiple reference sources on the history of South Bend, Indiana. She is identified in the obituary as a native of Tyrol, and niece of Hofer. Her maiden name appears in a variety of sources (and with a variety of spellings), to wit: in her son Francis Xavier Byerley's death record "Hennretta Hallschnght"; in the baptismal record of her daughter Caroline Josephine Byerley from England "Henriettæ Holskrecht"; and in the death record of her daughter Matilda Byerley O'Brien "Henrietta Holzknecht". Any student of history who is cognizant of Andeas Hofer is equally familiar with his uncle, Johann Holzknecht, who served with him in the uprising. Johann Holzknecht was the uncle of Hofer by virtue of the fact that he married his aunt. After the battle was lost and Hofer killed, Holzknecht went to Trieste, where his brother Franz had moved his family. Franz Holzknecht was married to Maria Hofer, sister of Andreas, making Franz's children nieces and nephews of Andreas Hofer. Henrietta, whose maiden name is established in the aforementioned records, was a native of Tyrol living in Trieste at the time of the uprising in Tyrol. It is doubtful that she made up the story that she was Hofer's niece. Franz Holknecht is the only person of that surname who married a Hofer sister, thus making Franz and Maria the likely parents of Henrietta.
(2) Most American records state that Josephine C. Byerley was born between 1835 and 1838 in New York, however the christening of Carolina Josephine took place in England on September 21, 1831. It is possible that these are two distinct daughters. It was not possible for this researcher to trace this daughter, Carolina Josephine, after her christening. The next record of the family is in South Bend in 1850, at which time Carolina could have been married or passed away.
(3) This record can be observed at:
"Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZC2-8HW : 10 December 2017), Samuel Byerly and Blanche S Bope, 29 Jan 1878; citing St. Joseph, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,503,391.
Although it is clearly stamped "Unofficial Record", in light of all other evidence surrounding the couple and their subsequent children, it can be viewed as factual information.
(4) Blanche's origins and parentage are indeterminate from available public records. In the 1880 US Census, her birthplace is given as Ohio, and that of her parents as Prussia. In the 1870 US Census, there is a young lady of the same age named Blanche Bope residing in St. Joseph County, Indiana with one Jacob and "Nanny" Bope, and other siblings; however, Jacob's birthplace is listed as "Pennsylvania" and Nanny's is listed as "New York", which is inconsistent with the information in the 1880 Census. There are Bope families represented in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, but none with a Jacob of the same age as Jacob Bope in Indiana in 1870. This is the only census record that he appears in. The rest of the Bope family in the 1870 Census seem to evaporate as well. The only other record of a Jacob Bope this researcher could find in Indiana is a couple of patents issued in 1872 to Jacob W. Bope and a collaborator, C. Aultman, for harvester reels. To complicate matters further, documentation of Blanche's children, Mary, Philip and Blanche, in subsequent US Census records, lists "Indiana" or "Illinois" as the birthplace of their mother in censuses in which they appear after 1880. There is a Mary C. Bope born April 17, 1872 in Bucyrus, Crawford County, Ohio to "J. W. Bope and Nancy W. Clute". J. W. and Nancy do not seem to fit with any of the other better documented Bope families, but they could conceivably be the parents from the 1870 record in Indiana. A "Laura D. Bope", daughter of "J. W. and N. W. Bope" passes away in Lima, Ohio on March 1, 1876 at age 12, and this would be consistent with the Laura in the 1870 record in Indiana, however her birth place is listed as Louisville, KY, and all of the children in the 1870 Indiana record were listed as having been born in Ohio. A Jacob Bope passes away in Ohio in 1872 who is not further documented elsewhere, however no city or county or interment reference is given in the record. And finally, a "Nancy W. Clute" b. Livingston County, NY gives birth to Charles Alexander Miller in Corning, Adams County, Iowa on July 26, 1881, which would be consistent with Nancy having a maiden name of Clute, being from New York, and first husband Jacob passing away in Ohio in 1872, but Miller being a common surname, it is difficult to take this research further. A Charles Alexander Miller of the same birth date and place later marries one Ottillie B. ____ and resides with her in Passaic, New Jersey.
(5) Special thanks to jcrow for sending a copy of this record.
Samuel's story really begins with his grandfather, Samuel Byerley (1796-1870), for whom he was named. Grandfather Samuel was the youngest of 12 children born to Thomas Byerley and Frances Bruckland. Great-grandfather Thomas Byerley passed away before his youngest son Samuel's 14th birthday. Grandfather Samuel's obituary years later would make much of this fact, implying that Grandfather Samuel was a self-educated youth; however this epitaph overlooks the fact that six of Samuel's older sisters were educators who founded a boarding school for girls, and his great-uncle was Josiah Wedgwood, whose descendants did not abandon their fatherless cousin. The Byerleys of England were men of good standing in military service to the Crown, and they enjoyed relatively fine material comforts of the day.
After serving as dispatch courier to Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, Grandfather Samuel traveled Europe extensively, settling in the port city of Trieste, where he obtained a partnership in a mercantile concern. It was in Trieste that he met Henrietta Holzknecht, daughter of Franz Holzknecht and Maria Hofer of Tyrol. Henrietta was the niece of Andreas Hofer, who was martyred for leading the Tryolean rebellion of 1809(1). Grandfather Samuel married Henrietta Holzknecht, and their first two children were born in Austria.
They moved to his native England before the birth of their third child, Caroline Josephine, in 1831(2). In 1832, Grandfather Samuel came to the United States, bringing his son Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, with him. He had secured a position with Howell & Apinwall in New York, one of the largest shipping companies in the United States, engaged extensively in international trade. He brought the rest of his family over, and he became a US citizen in 1838.
Grandfather Samuel converted to his wife's religion, Catholicism, and in 1841, he and his wife hosted a contingent of priests from the Congregation of the Holy Cross at their home in New York. The fathers were on their way to Indiana, where the Bishop of Vincennes had granted the order 524 acres in the Indiana mission fields. Thomas, who received his education in Poughkeepsie, NY and Emmitsburg, MD, went with Father Sorin and the brothers from the order to Indiana, where he helped them to build the first log church at what would later become the University of Notre Dame. By 1843, Grandfather Samuel had amassed a small fortune, and at age fifty, opted to retire to South Bend, Indiana, where he spent the remainder of his days enjoying his children, studying, and engaging in horticultural pursuits. He and his wife were benefactors of the University of Notre Dame.
Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, was the second child born to Samuel Byerley and Henrietta Holzknecht. In 1845, at the age of seventeen, Thomas accompanied Father Sorin to Dowagiac, Michigan, where he stood sponsor for a number of Native American children baptized by Father Sorin. In 1854, Thomas went to Chicago, where he was employed as a bookkeeper. He married Margaret Garrett of Chicago that year. His first wife passed away a little over a year later. There were no children born of this union. Thomas married 2nd Anne Rooney of New York, and they returned to Indiana to start their life together.
From the Byerleys, Grandfather Samuel brought to the family Unitarian philosophy, scientific curiosity, respect for military service and business acumen. From the Holzknechts, Henrietta brought devout Catholicism, rigorous defense of the principles of freedom, and an extraordinary sense of civic-mindedness. It was into this environment that Samuel Byerley, our subject, was born on March 8, 1858 in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Samuel was the first born son of Thomas Byerley, an Austrian native, born to auspicious parents, and Anne Rooney, a native of Ireland. In the early years of his second marriage, Thomas traveled from Indiana to Pike's Peak, and then to Kansas, before settling down with his young family in South Bend, where he began his fruit-growing business. Following a succession of four infant siblings who did not survive their first year, sister Tillie arrived in 1866, and brother Thomas two years later. Samuel also had a wealth of cousins for companionship, and many other pioneering families made their home in South Bend. The railroad was well established by the time Samuel was born, making travel between Indiana and Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio convenient and easy.
On January 28, 1878, Samuel Byerley and Blanche S. Bope obtained a license to marry from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for St. Joseph County, Indiana(3), and were married by the priest of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in South Bend the following day. Samuel and Blanche(4) can be found in Portage at his father's farm with their daughter, Mary, born May 10, 1879, in the 1880 US Census. Sam was working as a clerk for the railroad at the time.
Samuel and Blanche would have two additional children: Blanche A., born in September 1881, and Philip Joseph, born in September 1884, before Samuel's wife Blanche passed away in November 1884. Samuel married 2nd Lillian Tutt Curtis in Chicago in 1888. Lillian had grown up in South Bend, and was married briefly to Robert W. Curtis.
Samuel seems to have inherited his forbears' passion for adventure and travel. It is not known to this researcher what occupational endeavors he engaged in other than clerk for the railroad in 1880, and the subsequent census record documentations of manager (1900 - US Census), stock broker (1910 - US Census) and music publisher (1915 - NJ Census). In addition to his three children from his first marriage, Samuel and Lillian brought up three children of their own: Vera (b. 1889 in IN), Cecil (b. Feb. 1, 1893 IL), and Evelyn Hope (b. circa Apr. 1897 MO). There is no indication where the family resided between the years 1880 and 1900, other than the birthplaces of the children. By 1900, Mary was teaching school in Indiana, and Philip, age 16, was a student, both residing with their grandparents (although inexplicably misidentified as Thomas' daughter, Mary A., and stepson Philip J. in this record(5)), while their parents and siblings had removed to New Jersey. By 1910, Mary and Philip had moved to Chicago, where Mary worked as a public school teacher, and Philip had entered the automobile industry as a machinist.
Samuel's father retired from farming and began cultivating flowers. He named his parcel "Roselawn", and the South Bend neighborhood in the vicinity of his blooms wanted to adopt the name for their town, but since Roselawn was already taken by another Indiana town, they opted for "Roseland" instead. It is still called that today, in his honor.
Sister Tillie married George Foster, a freight clerk for the railroad, and they chose to remain in Indiana, first in Portage, then in Roseland, at 205 W. Cripe Street, in a house built in 1912 that is still standing to this day. They had four children. Brother Thomas, Jr. stayed in the South Bend area, and was engaged in the shipping industry, like his grandfather before him, until he passed away in 1907.
Samuel's daughter Mary Anna returned to Indiana to be closer to her grandfather in the later years of his life (her grandmother had passed away in 1909). She lived in the house at 114 Chapin Street (which was built in 1903 and is still standing) through the 1920s, according to census records and her passport records. Still teaching, Mary traveled quite a bit in the summer months of the 1930s, including trips abroad to England and France. By then she had moved to an apartment at 115 N. William Street, which is also still standing, but is now an office complex known as The Prairie Building. By 1940, she had moved to an apartment at The Rushton. Built in 1906, The Rushton was considered South Bend’s first “skyscraper”, and housed real estate agents, clerks, managers, lawyers and teachers in its 35 apartments. Eventually abandoned in the early 2000s, the Rushton spent over a decade awaiting a new purpose. Secured by Indiana Landmarks in 2005, and purchased by South Bend Heritage in 2012, The Rushton is once again a prominent fixture of downtown South Bend.
Samuel's daughter Blanche took an interest in fine art, and established herself as an international connoisseur, arranging exhibits and sales at home and abroad. She also opened her own lecture bureau in New York City. She married Lt. Commander Charles Felton Pousland, US Navy, in 1933.
Son Philip was born a year before Karl Benz invented the gasoline powered automobile engine, and Philip and the automobile grew up together. Thus, it is fitting that he chose automobile manufacture as his vocation. It is possible that he started his career at Studebaker in Indiana. In 1910, he was working at a machine shop in Chicago. He and his sister, Mary Anna, shared living quarters in Chicago, and he returned with her to South Bend after 1910. Later, Philip moved to Detroit to work for Packard Motor Car Company. In 1919, Philip traveled to war-torn Europe with the Knights of Columbus to engage in relief work. Upon his return, he and his bride, Christine, who was born in France, acquired property in Elkhart, Indiana and engaged in farming.
This researcher acknowledges taking the liberty of assuming that Mary Anna and Philip were both children of Samuel and Blanche Bope Byerley. There is no publicly accessible birth record for either, or for their sister, Blanche A. Mary resided with Samuel and Blanche in 1880. Mary is later referenced as Philip's "sister" in the 1910 US Census taken in Chicago, where they shared a residence at that time. While Blanche Byerley Pousland is clearly identified as the daughter of Samuel Byerley and Blanche Bope in her marriage record to Charles Pousland, this is not the case with Philip and Mary. The mother of the three offspring is identified in later census records as having hailed from Indiana or Illinois, which is inconsistent with records accumulated while Blanche Bope Byerley was alive. They are acknowledged as grandchildren in Thomas Byerley's obituary, and Samuel is clearly identified as Philip's father in his passport application. Philip's WW I draft registration lists his next of kin as "Mrs. Mary Byerley" of 732 W. Washington Street, South Bend. Although his sister, Mary, had moved to South Bend from Chicago prior to the draft, to the best of this researcher's knowledge, she was never married, and did not live on Washington Street until the late 1930s according to her passport and census records. This street address was the residence of Samuel's Aunt Matilda Byerley O'Brien, however. If there was an additional wife, Mary, of Samuel Byerley, (born perhaps in Illinois?) this researcher is unable to find record of same.
Of the three children from his second marriage, daughter Vera Byerley married 1st Guillermo Lavergne (b. circa 1876 in St. Thomas, Dutch West Indies, widower of Brigida Yordán de Lavergne) in Manhattan on May 15, 1907. Three of Guillermo's children, Nelson, Edwin and "Emelendo", resided with Lillian and Samuel in New York in 1910. (Vera and Guillermo are counted as guests at the Hotel Lucerne in Manhattan in this particular census). Vera Byerley Lavergne, widow, married 2nd Oswald Lindo (b. Panama) on November 21, 1919 in Manhattan. Of note is a minor child with the surname Lindo, born in the West Indies, who also resided as a 'lodger' with Samuel and Lillian Byerley in 1910. It is unknown to this researcher if he was related to Vera's second husband. Vera and Oswald divorced before 1930, and in 1933, Vera married 3rd a divorcee, Dr. Fenwick Beekman, a renowned New York surgeon.
Son Cecil married divorcee Ethel Dorothy _____ MacKenzie, called 'Dorothy', in Manhattan on April 24, 1937, and they made their home in Westchester, New York. Cecil passed away in January 1966 in New York. His wife Dorothy passed away in January 1992 in Westchester.
Daughter Evelyn married Lt. Commander Jay Knight Esler, US Navy, on Dec. 6, 1916 in Washington, D.C., and Samuel resided with them in Annapolis after his wife Lillian passed away. Evelyn and Jay had at least two children, Jay Knight Esler, Jr. (b. circa 1923 in New York) and Vera (b. circa 1928 in France). Evelyn and Jay later divorced, and Evelyn married 2nd Hainer Hinshaw, son of Stephen Curtis Hinshaw and Hannah Brickell. Commander Knight remarried to the widow of Dr Floyd Merrell Dondanville, Sr. Hainer passed away in Michigan in 1965. Evelyn passed away in Michigan in 1971.
(1) The information that Mrs. Henrietta Byerley was the niece of Andreas Hofer comes from Grandfather Samuel's obituary, published in the Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 39, Number 5927, on March 26, 1870, and re-printed in multiple reference sources on the history of South Bend, Indiana. She is identified in the obituary as a native of Tyrol, and niece of Hofer. Her maiden name appears in a variety of sources (and with a variety of spellings), to wit: in her son Francis Xavier Byerley's death record "Hennretta Hallschnght"; in the baptismal record of her daughter Caroline Josephine Byerley from England "Henriettæ Holskrecht"; and in the death record of her daughter Matilda Byerley O'Brien "Henrietta Holzknecht". Any student of history who is cognizant of Andeas Hofer is equally familiar with his uncle, Johann Holzknecht, who served with him in the uprising. Johann Holzknecht was the uncle of Hofer by virtue of the fact that he married his aunt. After the battle was lost and Hofer killed, Holzknecht went to Trieste, where his brother Franz had moved his family. Franz Holzknecht was married to Maria Hofer, sister of Andreas, making Franz's children nieces and nephews of Andreas Hofer. Henrietta, whose maiden name is established in the aforementioned records, was a native of Tyrol living in Trieste at the time of the uprising in Tyrol. It is doubtful that she made up the story that she was Hofer's niece. Franz Holknecht is the only person of that surname who married a Hofer sister, thus making Franz and Maria the likely parents of Henrietta.
(2) Most American records state that Josephine C. Byerley was born between 1835 and 1838 in New York, however the christening of Carolina Josephine took place in England on September 21, 1831. It is possible that these are two distinct daughters. It was not possible for this researcher to trace this daughter, Carolina Josephine, after her christening. The next record of the family is in South Bend in 1850, at which time Carolina could have been married or passed away.
(3) This record can be observed at:
"Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZC2-8HW : 10 December 2017), Samuel Byerly and Blanche S Bope, 29 Jan 1878; citing St. Joseph, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,503,391.
Although it is clearly stamped "Unofficial Record", in light of all other evidence surrounding the couple and their subsequent children, it can be viewed as factual information.
(4) Blanche's origins and parentage are indeterminate from available public records. In the 1880 US Census, her birthplace is given as Ohio, and that of her parents as Prussia. In the 1870 US Census, there is a young lady of the same age named Blanche Bope residing in St. Joseph County, Indiana with one Jacob and "Nanny" Bope, and other siblings; however, Jacob's birthplace is listed as "Pennsylvania" and Nanny's is listed as "New York", which is inconsistent with the information in the 1880 Census. There are Bope families represented in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, but none with a Jacob of the same age as Jacob Bope in Indiana in 1870. This is the only census record that he appears in. The rest of the Bope family in the 1870 Census seem to evaporate as well. The only other record of a Jacob Bope this researcher could find in Indiana is a couple of patents issued in 1872 to Jacob W. Bope and a collaborator, C. Aultman, for harvester reels. To complicate matters further, documentation of Blanche's children, Mary, Philip and Blanche, in subsequent US Census records, lists "Indiana" or "Illinois" as the birthplace of their mother in censuses in which they appear after 1880. There is a Mary C. Bope born April 17, 1872 in Bucyrus, Crawford County, Ohio to "J. W. Bope and Nancy W. Clute". J. W. and Nancy do not seem to fit with any of the other better documented Bope families, but they could conceivably be the parents from the 1870 record in Indiana. A "Laura D. Bope", daughter of "J. W. and N. W. Bope" passes away in Lima, Ohio on March 1, 1876 at age 12, and this would be consistent with the Laura in the 1870 record in Indiana, however her birth place is listed as Louisville, KY, and all of the children in the 1870 Indiana record were listed as having been born in Ohio. A Jacob Bope passes away in Ohio in 1872 who is not further documented elsewhere, however no city or county or interment reference is given in the record. And finally, a "Nancy W. Clute" b. Livingston County, NY gives birth to Charles Alexander Miller in Corning, Adams County, Iowa on July 26, 1881, which would be consistent with Nancy having a maiden name of Clute, being from New York, and first husband Jacob passing away in Ohio in 1872, but Miller being a common surname, it is difficult to take this research further. A Charles Alexander Miller of the same birth date and place later marries one Ottillie B. ____ and resides with her in Passaic, New Jersey.
(5) Special thanks to jcrow for sending a copy of this record.
After serving as dispatch courier to Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, Grandfather Samuel traveled Europe extensively, settling in the port city of Trieste, where he obtained a partnership in a mercantile concern. It was in Trieste that he met Henrietta Holzknecht, daughter of Franz Holzknecht and Maria Hofer of Tyrol. Henrietta was the niece of Andreas Hofer, who was martyred for leading the Tryolean rebellion of 1809(1). Grandfather Samuel married Henrietta Holzknecht, and their first two children were born in Austria.
They moved to his native England before the birth of their third child, Caroline Josephine, in 1831(2). In 1832, Grandfather Samuel came to the United States, bringing his son Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, with him. He had secured a position with Howell & Apinwall in New York, one of the largest shipping companies in the United States, engaged extensively in international trade. He brought the rest of his family over, and he became a US citizen in 1838.
Grandfather Samuel converted to his wife's religion, Catholicism, and in 1841, he and his wife hosted a contingent of priests from the Congregation of the Holy Cross at their home in New York. The fathers were on their way to Indiana, where the Bishop of Vincennes had granted the order 524 acres in the Indiana mission fields. Thomas, who received his education in Poughkeepsie, NY and Emmitsburg, MD, went with Father Sorin and the brothers from the order to Indiana, where he helped them to build the first log church at what would later become the University of Notre Dame. By 1843, Grandfather Samuel had amassed a small fortune, and at age fifty, opted to retire to South Bend, Indiana, where he spent the remainder of his days enjoying his children, studying, and engaging in horticultural pursuits. He and his wife were benefactors of the University of Notre Dame.
Thomas, father of our subject, Samuel, was the second child born to Samuel Byerley and Henrietta Holzknecht. In 1845, at the age of seventeen, Thomas accompanied Father Sorin to Dowagiac, Michigan, where he stood sponsor for a number of Native American children baptized by Father Sorin. In 1854, Thomas went to Chicago, where he was employed as a bookkeeper. He married Margaret Garrett of Chicago that year. His first wife passed away a little over a year later. There were no children born of this union. Thomas married 2nd Anne Rooney of New York, and they returned to Indiana to start their life together.
From the Byerleys, Grandfather Samuel brought to the family Unitarian philosophy, scientific curiosity, respect for military service and business acumen. From the Holzknechts, Henrietta brought devout Catholicism, rigorous defense of the principles of freedom, and an extraordinary sense of civic-mindedness. It was into this environment that Samuel Byerley, our subject, was born on March 8, 1858 in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Samuel was the first born son of Thomas Byerley, an Austrian native, born to auspicious parents, and Anne Rooney, a native of Ireland. In the early years of his second marriage, Thomas traveled from Indiana to Pike's Peak, and then to Kansas, before settling down with his young family in South Bend, where he began his fruit-growing business. Following a succession of four infant siblings who did not survive their first year, sister Tillie arrived in 1866, and brother Thomas two years later. Samuel also had a wealth of cousins for companionship, and many other pioneering families made their home in South Bend. The railroad was well established by the time Samuel was born, making travel between Indiana and Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio convenient and easy.
On January 28, 1878, Samuel Byerley and Blanche S. Bope obtained a license to marry from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for St. Joseph County, Indiana(3), and were married by the priest of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in South Bend the following day. Samuel and Blanche(4) can be found in Portage at his father's farm with their daughter, Mary, born May 10, 1879, in the 1880 US Census. Sam was working as a clerk for the railroad at the time.
Samuel and Blanche would have two additional children: Blanche A., born in September 1881, and Philip Joseph, born in September 1884, before Samuel's wife Blanche passed away in November 1884. Samuel married 2nd Lillian Tutt Curtis in Chicago in 1888. Lillian had grown up in South Bend, and was married briefly to Robert W. Curtis.
Samuel seems to have inherited his forbears' passion for adventure and travel. It is not known to this researcher what occupational endeavors he engaged in other than clerk for the railroad in 1880, and the subsequent census record documentations of manager (1900 - US Census), stock broker (1910 - US Census) and music publisher (1915 - NJ Census). In addition to his three children from his first marriage, Samuel and Lillian brought up three children of their own: Vera (b. 1889 in IN), Cecil (b. Feb. 1, 1893 IL), and Evelyn Hope (b. circa Apr. 1897 MO). There is no indication where the family resided between the years 1880 and 1900, other than the birthplaces of the children. By 1900, Mary was teaching school in Indiana, and Philip, age 16, was a student, both residing with their grandparents (although inexplicably misidentified as Thomas' daughter, Mary A., and stepson Philip J. in this record(5)), while their parents and siblings had removed to New Jersey. By 1910, Mary and Philip had moved to Chicago, where Mary worked as a public school teacher, and Philip had entered the automobile industry as a machinist.
Samuel's father retired from farming and began cultivating flowers. He named his parcel "Roselawn", and the South Bend neighborhood in the vicinity of his blooms wanted to adopt the name for their town, but since Roselawn was already taken by another Indiana town, they opted for "Roseland" instead. It is still called that today, in his honor.
Sister Tillie married George Foster, a freight clerk for the railroad, and they chose to remain in Indiana, first in Portage, then in Roseland, at 205 W. Cripe Street, in a house built in 1912 that is still standing to this day. They had four children. Brother Thomas, Jr. stayed in the South Bend area, and was engaged in the shipping industry, like his grandfather before him, until he passed away in 1907.
Samuel's daughter Mary Anna returned to Indiana to be closer to her grandfather in the later years of his life (her grandmother had passed away in 1909). She lived in the house at 114 Chapin Street (which was built in 1903 and is still standing) through the 1920s, according to census records and her passport records. Still teaching, Mary traveled quite a bit in the summer months of the 1930s, including trips abroad to England and France. By then she had moved to an apartment at 115 N. William Street, which is also still standing, but is now an office complex known as The Prairie Building. By 1940, she had moved to an apartment at The Rushton. Built in 1906, The Rushton was considered South Bend’s first “skyscraper”, and housed real estate agents, clerks, managers, lawyers and teachers in its 35 apartments. Eventually abandoned in the early 2000s, the Rushton spent over a decade awaiting a new purpose. Secured by Indiana Landmarks in 2005, and purchased by South Bend Heritage in 2012, The Rushton is once again a prominent fixture of downtown South Bend.
Samuel's daughter Blanche took an interest in fine art, and established herself as an international connoisseur, arranging exhibits and sales at home and abroad. She also opened her own lecture bureau in New York City. She married Lt. Commander Charles Felton Pousland, US Navy, in 1933.
Son Philip was born a year before Karl Benz invented the gasoline powered automobile engine, and Philip and the automobile grew up together. Thus, it is fitting that he chose automobile manufacture as his vocation. It is possible that he started his career at Studebaker in Indiana. In 1910, he was working at a machine shop in Chicago. He and his sister, Mary Anna, shared living quarters in Chicago, and he returned with her to South Bend after 1910. Later, Philip moved to Detroit to work for Packard Motor Car Company. In 1919, Philip traveled to war-torn Europe with the Knights of Columbus to engage in relief work. Upon his return, he and his bride, Christine, who was born in France, acquired property in Elkhart, Indiana and engaged in farming.
This researcher acknowledges taking the liberty of assuming that Mary Anna and Philip were both children of Samuel and Blanche Bope Byerley. There is no publicly accessible birth record for either, or for their sister, Blanche A. Mary resided with Samuel and Blanche in 1880. Mary is later referenced as Philip's "sister" in the 1910 US Census taken in Chicago, where they shared a residence at that time. While Blanche Byerley Pousland is clearly identified as the daughter of Samuel Byerley and Blanche Bope in her marriage record to Charles Pousland, this is not the case with Philip and Mary. The mother of the three offspring is identified in later census records as having hailed from Indiana or Illinois, which is inconsistent with records accumulated while Blanche Bope Byerley was alive. They are acknowledged as grandchildren in Thomas Byerley's obituary, and Samuel is clearly identified as Philip's father in his passport application. Philip's WW I draft registration lists his next of kin as "Mrs. Mary Byerley" of 732 W. Washington Street, South Bend. Although his sister, Mary, had moved to South Bend from Chicago prior to the draft, to the best of this researcher's knowledge, she was never married, and did not live on Washington Street until the late 1930s according to her passport and census records. This street address was the residence of Samuel's Aunt Matilda Byerley O'Brien, however. If there was an additional wife, Mary, of Samuel Byerley, (born perhaps in Illinois?) this researcher is unable to find record of same.
Of the three children from his second marriage, daughter Vera Byerley married 1st Guillermo Lavergne (b. circa 1876 in St. Thomas, Dutch West Indies, widower of Brigida Yordán de Lavergne) in Manhattan on May 15, 1907. Three of Guillermo's children, Nelson, Edwin and "Emelendo", resided with Lillian and Samuel in New York in 1910. (Vera and Guillermo are counted as guests at the Hotel Lucerne in Manhattan in this particular census). Vera Byerley Lavergne, widow, married 2nd Oswald Lindo (b. Panama) on November 21, 1919 in Manhattan. Of note is a minor child with the surname Lindo, born in the West Indies, who also resided as a 'lodger' with Samuel and Lillian Byerley in 1910. It is unknown to this researcher if he was related to Vera's second husband. Vera and Oswald divorced before 1930, and in 1933, Vera married 3rd a divorcee, Dr. Fenwick Beekman, a renowned New York surgeon.
Son Cecil married divorcee Ethel Dorothy _____ MacKenzie, called 'Dorothy', in Manhattan on April 24, 1937, and they made their home in Westchester, New York. Cecil passed away in January 1966 in New York. His wife Dorothy passed away in January 1992 in Westchester.
Daughter Evelyn married Lt. Commander Jay Knight Esler, US Navy, on Dec. 6, 1916 in Washington, D.C., and Samuel resided with them in Annapolis after his wife Lillian passed away. Evelyn and Jay had at least two children, Jay Knight Esler, Jr. (b. circa 1923 in New York) and Vera (b. circa 1928 in France). Evelyn and Jay later divorced, and Evelyn married 2nd Hainer Hinshaw, son of Stephen Curtis Hinshaw and Hannah Brickell. Commander Knight remarried to the widow of Dr Floyd Merrell Dondanville, Sr. Hainer passed away in Michigan in 1965. Evelyn passed away in Michigan in 1971.
(1) The information that Mrs. Henrietta Byerley was the niece of Andreas Hofer comes from Grandfather Samuel's obituary, published in the Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 39, Number 5927, on March 26, 1870, and re-printed in multiple reference sources on the history of South Bend, Indiana. She is identified in the obituary as a native of Tyrol, and niece of Hofer. Her maiden name appears in a variety of sources (and with a variety of spellings), to wit: in her son Francis Xavier Byerley's death record "Hennretta Hallschnght"; in the baptismal record of her daughter Caroline Josephine Byerley from England "Henriettæ Holskrecht"; and in the death record of her daughter Matilda Byerley O'Brien "Henrietta Holzknecht". Any student of history who is cognizant of Andeas Hofer is equally familiar with his uncle, Johann Holzknecht, who served with him in the uprising. Johann Holzknecht was the uncle of Hofer by virtue of the fact that he married his aunt. After the battle was lost and Hofer killed, Holzknecht went to Trieste, where his brother Franz had moved his family. Franz Holzknecht was married to Maria Hofer, sister of Andreas, making Franz's children nieces and nephews of Andreas Hofer. Henrietta, whose maiden name is established in the aforementioned records, was a native of Tyrol living in Trieste at the time of the uprising in Tyrol. It is doubtful that she made up the story that she was Hofer's niece. Franz Holknecht is the only person of that surname who married a Hofer sister, thus making Franz and Maria the likely parents of Henrietta.
(2) Most American records state that Josephine C. Byerley was born between 1835 and 1838 in New York, however the christening of Carolina Josephine took place in England on September 21, 1831. It is possible that these are two distinct daughters. It was not possible for this researcher to trace this daughter, Carolina Josephine, after her christening. The next record of the family is in South Bend in 1850, at which time Carolina could have been married or passed away.
(3) This record can be observed at:
"Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZC2-8HW : 10 December 2017), Samuel Byerly and Blanche S Bope, 29 Jan 1878; citing St. Joseph, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,503,391.
Although it is clearly stamped "Unofficial Record", in light of all other evidence surrounding the couple and their subsequent children, it can be viewed as factual information.
(4) Blanche's origins and parentage are indeterminate from available public records. In the 1880 US Census, her birthplace is given as Ohio, and that of her parents as Prussia. In the 1870 US Census, there is a young lady of the same age named Blanche Bope residing in St. Joseph County, Indiana with one Jacob and "Nanny" Bope, and other siblings; however, Jacob's birthplace is listed as "Pennsylvania" and Nanny's is listed as "New York", which is inconsistent with the information in the 1880 Census. There are Bope families represented in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, but none with a Jacob of the same age as Jacob Bope in Indiana in 1870. This is the only census record that he appears in. The rest of the Bope family in the 1870 Census seem to evaporate as well. The only other record of a Jacob Bope this researcher could find in Indiana is a couple of patents issued in 1872 to Jacob W. Bope and a collaborator, C. Aultman, for harvester reels. To complicate matters further, documentation of Blanche's children, Mary, Philip and Blanche, in subsequent US Census records, lists "Indiana" or "Illinois" as the birthplace of their mother in censuses in which they appear after 1880. There is a Mary C. Bope born April 17, 1872 in Bucyrus, Crawford County, Ohio to "J. W. Bope and Nancy W. Clute". J. W. and Nancy do not seem to fit with any of the other better documented Bope families, but they could conceivably be the parents from the 1870 record in Indiana. A "Laura D. Bope", daughter of "J. W. and N. W. Bope" passes away in Lima, Ohio on March 1, 1876 at age 12, and this would be consistent with the Laura in the 1870 record in Indiana, however her birth place is listed as Louisville, KY, and all of the children in the 1870 Indiana record were listed as having been born in Ohio. A Jacob Bope passes away in Ohio in 1872 who is not further documented elsewhere, however no city or county or interment reference is given in the record. And finally, a "Nancy W. Clute" b. Livingston County, NY gives birth to Charles Alexander Miller in Corning, Adams County, Iowa on July 26, 1881, which would be consistent with Nancy having a maiden name of Clute, being from New York, and first husband Jacob passing away in Ohio in 1872, but Miller being a common surname, it is difficult to take this research further. A Charles Alexander Miller of the same birth date and place later marries one Ottillie B. ____ and resides with her in Passaic, New Jersey.
(5) Special thanks to jcrow for sending a copy of this record.
Family Members
Siblings
