Good Evening,
First, let me say how great your web site is. I thoroughly enjoyed looking through your well researched, and just plain fun, history of Newport. The old pictures are great, along with other old records. It should be taken as a model from what could and should be done in many parts of the country. But the only people interested in doing something like that are those with deep roots to their area, as you obviously do.
My wife and I spent a couple of hours in Newport 2 weeks ago looking for some of her ancestors--buried there, but no headstones, as seemed to be the usual for her family. Then 4 hours in the Genealogical center in Marietta, where we had been before to wrap up a few loose ends.
I don't know much about the area, growing up in western NY. My wife's ancestors came from the Marietta/Newport area. Matthew Mathers came from Washington County, PA to Athens by the 1850 Census, and then to Newport in the 1860 Census. David Mathers, Matthew's son (and my wife's great great grandfather) fought in the Civil War and married Catharine Scott in 1865. She was a daughter of Maxwell Scott, also CW vet from there (Not the Maxwell Scott buried in Newport). Several of David's brothers are buried in the cemetery in Newport--Matthew, Joseph, and I think a third one. David and Catharine are buried in the Stanleyville Cemetery--quite a job finding it, but a beautiful setting-- no headstone there either.
Their son Joseph married (1889) and divorced (1893) Jane E. Wise Scott there, and married Hulda Shafer there in 1900. Her father and mother were Lucinda and Abraham Shafer. Joseph and Hulda had Perry (Paris), Kenneth, and Dorothy Mathers while living there (Netop/Cornerville), as well as Charles Mathers by his first wife. They moved north to Sebring to engage in the pottery factory there sometime between 1905 and 1908.
So finally, to my questions. Does anyone there know anything about any of the Mathers who lived there a century ago, or any surviving Mathers orShafers. The Shafers are not the ones from Germany who ran/run the leather store in Marietta, but farmers generally from Warren. Thomas Mathers was the last of David's children to pass away. I have his obit from the Marietta Times, in 1963. He lived in Lower Salem at the home of Mrs. Wesley Ullman for the last 17 years (I am assuming that she was a relative, but he could have just been a boarder there. Before that, he was on the family farm.
Matthew & Lydia Mathers children were:
John, James, Nancy, Eliza, David, Alexander, Matthew, Lydia, Joseph, Mary Jane.
David & Catharine (Scott) Mathers children were:
Joseph, Charles H, Maxwell, Steven M (I have heard some of his family is still in the area), Amos, Amy, Thomas
Joseph married Jane Evelyn Wise (step-father was a Maxwell Scott who married Minerva Wise), and then Hulda E Shafer, as indicated above
Charles H married Olive (Ollie) Shafer, a sister of Hulda's.
Maxwell married Bertha Shafer, another sister of Hulda's. Their children were Gladys and Arthur. Gladys married Forrest Antil, with children Flavil, Fay, Forrest, and Frances. Arthur was still single in the 1930 Census, living with his parents in Wesley Township.
Steven married Annie Efferson with children Thomas, Mary, and George.
Amos died quite young
Amy was married to a man named Cooper, don't know the first name
I don't know for sure about Thomas, but I don't think he married.
I have old pictures of most of them from early in the 1900s, but would like to make connections with anyone descended from them.
Thank you for any help you can provide. We have been working on tracing the family for my father-in-law. He had no knowledge of his father's family since his father (Perry Mathers) left home in western NY when he was 3, and now at 84 and counting, would like to know about his roots. We will be presenting this in video form at the family Christmas party next month. But still no word on what happened to his father--no one else in the family heard from him after he went west, as far as we can tell from their living children.
With best regards,
Glenn & Cheryl Adams
