Memorial Albumen Cabinet Card for Susan Mearig Sherley, 1910
Susan K. Mearig was born 9 November, 1845, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Reuben Mearig and Anna Kraft, and had brother named George Mearig.
Susan married John C. Sherley on 31 May, 1866, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, which in more recent times became the home of Camp Silver Belle, a Spiritualist retreat where ghosts aplenty were raised. Sherley was born 8 October, 1845, to Joseph Sherley and Elizabeth Sweigart, Pennsylvanians of German origins. The family first appears on the 1830 census of Earl Township, Lancaster County. John’s mother died when he was 11, and his father passed only two years later. The Sherley children were divvied up amongst neighboring families. According to a history of the family written by one its members, John’s older sister Susan went to live on a farm owned by Abraham Scheibley in Upper Leacock. The Scheibley farm was next to one owned by the Bushong family, and on it lived George Mearig, Susan’s brother, who surely proved to be the connecting point between the future couple.
John Sherley, as well as two of his brothers, fought in the Civil War. He joined up on 31 December, 1863, age 18, and served with Company B of the 20th Pennsylvania Infantry. His enlistment papers note that he had blue eyes and was only 5”2’ tall, although he later grew to 5”6’. Sherley was discharged in June 1865.
The couple had five children: Mary Ann (13 October, 1866 - 1954); Jacob E. (20 April, 1868 - 1933); William Martin (1876 - 1924), Harry Albert (1880 - 1967), and Albert Eugene (1882 - 1960).
On 10 April, 1871, John Sherley left his family in Pennsylvania and went west to Kansas with a group of sixty men and one woman who had vowed to pool their resources to form what they called the Pennsylvania Colony. According to the family history, “After the settlement had been established, lots were drawn to see which property each member would hold. Properties were 160 acres each and in John’s draw, he acquired acreage located just east of the town they had established and named ‘Osbourne City.’”
Sherley sent for his family and they joined him on the new property. In 1875, the Kansas census, taken on the first of March, placed the family in Penn (short for Pennsylvania Colony?), Osbourne County, where John, Susan, daughter Mary Ann and son Jacob, were farming. Susan was probably quite pregnant with the couple’s second son William at the time. The history says that John’s farm flourished at first, but then came a grasshopper plague that destroyed his crops and forced him to sell out. On the 1880 census of Osbourne, Osbourne County, finds John enumerated as “farmer, now hotel keeper.” Their listing includes three of their five children, servants, and hotel boarders. Later, John became a Singer Sewing Machine agent who traveled “with a pony team and a Singer Company light spring wagon.”
The family moved to Clay Center, Kansas, in the early 1880s, and later relocated to Lancing, where John worked as an electrician at the state prison at Leavenworth, and as a machinist at the Fisher Machine Company, and at the Wadsworth Old Soldiers Home.
Susan died on 11 April, 1910, in Clay Center, Clay County, and was buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Clay Center. In 1922, John’s heath failed and after stays at several hospitals, he died on 26 October. He was buried beside Susan.
A photo of Susan and John: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/8727662206/in/photostream
Memorial Albumen Cabinet Card for Susan Mearig Sherley, 1910
Susan K. Mearig was born 9 November, 1845, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Reuben Mearig and Anna Kraft, and had brother named George Mearig.
Susan married John C. Sherley on 31 May, 1866, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, which in more recent times became the home of Camp Silver Belle, a Spiritualist retreat where ghosts aplenty were raised. Sherley was born 8 October, 1845, to Joseph Sherley and Elizabeth Sweigart, Pennsylvanians of German origins. The family first appears on the 1830 census of Earl Township, Lancaster County. John’s mother died when he was 11, and his father passed only two years later. The Sherley children were divvied up amongst neighboring families. According to a history of the family written by one its members, John’s older sister Susan went to live on a farm owned by Abraham Scheibley in Upper Leacock. The Scheibley farm was next to one owned by the Bushong family, and on it lived George Mearig, Susan’s brother, who surely proved to be the connecting point between the future couple.
John Sherley, as well as two of his brothers, fought in the Civil War. He joined up on 31 December, 1863, age 18, and served with Company B of the 20th Pennsylvania Infantry. His enlistment papers note that he had blue eyes and was only 5”2’ tall, although he later grew to 5”6’. Sherley was discharged in June 1865.
The couple had five children: Mary Ann (13 October, 1866 - 1954); Jacob E. (20 April, 1868 - 1933); William Martin (1876 - 1924), Harry Albert (1880 - 1967), and Albert Eugene (1882 - 1960).
On 10 April, 1871, John Sherley left his family in Pennsylvania and went west to Kansas with a group of sixty men and one woman who had vowed to pool their resources to form what they called the Pennsylvania Colony. According to the family history, “After the settlement had been established, lots were drawn to see which property each member would hold. Properties were 160 acres each and in John’s draw, he acquired acreage located just east of the town they had established and named ‘Osbourne City.’”
Sherley sent for his family and they joined him on the new property. In 1875, the Kansas census, taken on the first of March, placed the family in Penn (short for Pennsylvania Colony?), Osbourne County, where John, Susan, daughter Mary Ann and son Jacob, were farming. Susan was probably quite pregnant with the couple’s second son William at the time. The history says that John’s farm flourished at first, but then came a grasshopper plague that destroyed his crops and forced him to sell out. On the 1880 census of Osbourne, Osbourne County, finds John enumerated as “farmer, now hotel keeper.” Their listing includes three of their five children, servants, and hotel boarders. Later, John became a Singer Sewing Machine agent who traveled “with a pony team and a Singer Company light spring wagon.”
The family moved to Clay Center, Kansas, in the early 1880s, and later relocated to Lancing, where John worked as an electrician at the state prison at Leavenworth, and as a machinist at the Fisher Machine Company, and at the Wadsworth Old Soldiers Home.
Susan died on 11 April, 1910, in Clay Center, Clay County, and was buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Clay Center. In 1922, John’s heath failed and after stays at several hospitals, he died on 26 October. He was buried beside Susan.
A photo of Susan and John: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/8727662206/in/photostream