Leigh Zahler, 1960
The text below is copied from the notebook of Leigh Zahler, which he recorded in the later years of his life. Leigh was known for remembering events and details from his young and early adult years. His repetition often annoyed others, but he seemed not to notice. In the end most of what is writes agrees with other sources and is a helpful starting source.
I was born in Strykersville, Town of Sheldon, Wyoming County, N.Y., on Jan. 22, 1903. I was born on a farm of 100 acres or more owned by Race Castle which my father rented on shares for nine years. His mother Alice E. lived on a farm about a mile north of Strykersville which was I believe also owned by Mr. Castle. The house where we lived was toward the north end of town, but only about three houses north of the Catholic Church. There were Baptist and Congregational Churches also but when I was 8 years old the Congregational was no longer in use and in later years the Baptist Church was torn down. Strykersville was then quite a town. It had three grocery stores, a cheese factory, a brewery, two hotels, two blacksmith shops, a hardware store, a feed and sawmill, a furniture store and an evaporator for drying apples. The latter two businesses may not have been there when I was born.
My Father rented the Castle farm for 9 years from 1897 until 1906 when we moved to the farm on Savage road in Sardinia a year after his stepfather bought the farm on Matteson road, Sardinia which was formerly known as the Matteson farm.
My parents were married on Feb. 14, 1900. My mother's folks lived about a mile west of Strykersville near the west end of the factory road, where my Grandparents owned and operated a dairy.
My grandparent's farm was on the county line of Erie and Wyoming counties. The house was in Sheldon, Wyoming county and the barn and most of the land was in the town of Wales, Erie County but my mother said all their taxes were paid in Wyoming County. My mother was born on Schang road, town of Wales near Wales Center. Later they lived in Wales Hollow when she was quite small before finally moving to the farm near Strykersville which I believe was the only farm my Grandfather ever owned. The best land on the farm, across the road from the house (about 4 or 5 acres) he sold to Emil Lefort a neighbor because he was so heavy in debt.
My aunt Nettie was about three years older than Mom. I don't know where she was born. My Uncle Herbert was born on Nov. 1, 1884. I believe he must have been born before they moved to the Strykersville farm because my mother told of playing with children in Wales Hollow. My mother had an older brother born about 1875 who only lived a few weeks, and a younger brother, the youngest of the family, who also died as an infant. I do not know where his grave is but probably he was buried in Dutch Hollow cemetery. The oldest brother's grave still had a stone when I last was there about 1975 or 1976.
My mother's father Charles Frederick Merlau was born on Goose Hill road just west of the Dutch Hollow cemetery. He must have been born close to the county line but I don't know which side. His house where he died in the spring of 1908 was in Wyoming Co., but his barn was in Erie Co. in the Town of Wales. The county line ran through the barn of his next door neighbor Nick Schiltz but I don't know which side their house was on.
My great-grandfather John Carl Merlau was born in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany in 1808. I saw his discharge paper from the army which was dated May 5, 1835 (in the City of Giessen, Hesse Darmstadt). He came to this country in 1840 with two brothers Christopher, born 1795, died 1875 age 80 and Phillip, born 1806, died 1860 age 54. (Dates from their gravestones) My grandfather's mother came from either Baden or Wurttemburg, Germany. I don't know when she came to this country but as she had at least one brother she probably came to the U.S. with her parents whose family name was Zapf, but I don't know her first name.
My grandfather had two brothers, John and Henry (who I believe was the youngest of the family) and four sisters Lehne, Augusta, Mary, and Catherine (who lived in Ohio). I believe their ages were in that order. Aunts Lehne and Augusta died rather young. Lehne was the mother of George Kopp and Augusta was the mother of Alice and Ida Yaw. Kate had a son Chas. Rhodes but I never heard any other children mentioned. Aunt Mary married Geo. Ismert and had five children, Minnie, Clarence, Addie, Leonard, and Bertha. Uncle John married Mary Heintz. Their children were Alta Hinds, Sarah Crum, and Maynard Merlau.
Uncle Henry Merlau married Emma Eyering. Their children were Florence Schreiber, Edna Turnbull and Earl Merlau. Edna who married a lawyer died quite young of T.B., but she had one daughter.
Earl had one daughter. He died when he was about 40 of a heart attack.
My father was born on July 24, 1873 in Big Rapids, Mich. His father worked in an iron foundry there. Dad's father died in 1875 when he was 26 years old. Dad's parents were Frederick Zahler and Alice Perry. Dad was named Floyd Eugene. His parents were both born in the town of Bennington, Wyoming County, N.Y. Dad's father worked on a farm that belonged to his mother's grandfather, Pomeroy Warren. After they were married they moved to Big Rapids. How they happened to move to Mich. I do not know.
After the death of his father, his mother came back to Bennington and they lived with her parents until Dad was about 6 years old when his mother married Martin Tharnish. Martin Tharnish also was working on the Warren farm when they were married. After their marriage they must have lived for a while on the Warren farm because Dad told about his step-father throwing him in the creek while washing sheep and he clung to a sheep which dragged him out. He also told about going on a trip with his grandfather Perry when he took a load of wool to a mill in Sardinia.
The Warren farm was settled by Pomeroy Warren who purchased 800 acres of land in Bennington along Cayuga Creek soon after the War of 1812. He served in the army for a short time during that war. I got this information from a booklet we received by mail from the N.Y. Telephone Co. The booklet called Century farms, gave a history of several farms which had been in the families for over a hundred years. It did not say where Pomeroy Warren was born but said that he married Harriet Buell from Connecticut. My grandmother said she believed her grandfather came from near Geneva N.Y..
The Warren's had eleven children, 10 daughters and 1 son Lyman Warren. Dad's grandmother Perry (nee Asenath Warren) was born in the old house on the Warren farm (1829) where my grandmother also was born in 1852 (I believe in November). Dad's grandmother Perry was born in the same house on the Warren farm in 1829 and died about August 1917 aged 88. His grandfather Perry was born in 1823 and died in 1893. My grandmother said her father didn't have to serve in the Civil War because he had only one lung. How he lost the other I don't know. However he hired a man to serve in his place. My grandmother once showed us an old seven shot revolver which the man carried during the war. Dad said his grandfather once taught high school in Attica (I believe).
When my grandmother went to grade school she studied German because her father ran a grocery store, and she thought she could help him better in the store because there were so many German people around there.
My grandmother was the eldest of four children. Her sister Ida was next then Uncle Lyman and Aunt May, the youngest. Aunt May was only four years older than Dad. Aunt Ida married George Killian (of Bennington I believe). I found a newspaper clipping among some old photos which had a picture of Mr. & Mrs. George Killian, Mr. & Mrs. William Killian and Mr. & Mrs. John Killian all married on the same day. I had never heard of John Killian before. There was another brother, Henry Killian, who lived in East Aurora, N.Y. He was a carpenter. Uncle George ran a farm near Dad's grandparents place on Allegheny Road (Bennington) and also did some carpenter work.
It's interesting to note that George Killian's father was a cousin of Michael Kopp who was my mother's maternal grandfather and that the wife of William Killian, Sophie, was a cousin of my grandfather Merlau. Her maiden name was Merlau the daughter of Christopher Merlau who was the older brother of John Carl Merlau my grandfather's father. John Carl was born in 1808. I got this information from his discharge from the army which my grandmother once showed me. John Carl Merlau was 27 years old when he was discharged on May 5, 1835. In 1840 he and his two brothers came to this country. His two brothers were both older. Christopher born in 1795 and died in 1875. Philip died in 1860 aged 54 so he was born in 1806.
About 1916 the descendants of the three Merlau brothers began having family reunions every Labor Day and sometimes I believe over 50 people came to the reunion at the Sardinia Community Hall. That year some of the women made a family tree of the descendants of the three brothers but I never wrote down any information I could have received from it so I do not just know how some of the relatives were related to my mother.
My grandfather Charles Merlau had two brothers and four sisters. Their names were John, Henry, Augusta, Lehne (Lany) Catherine, and Mary. Children of Uncle John were Sarah (Crum), Alta (Hinds) and Maynard. Children of Uncle Henry were Florence (Schreiber), Edna (Turnbull), and son Earl.
Augusta and Lehne died quite young. Augusta (Hoffower) had two girls, Alice and Ida, who married Frank and Theodore Yaw. Alice the oldest sister married Frank, the youngest brother. They had one son Nelson who was about 5 or 6 years older than me. Ida and Theodore were married a few years later the same day my parents were married, Feb. 14, 1900. After my parents were married they drove to East Aurora and stood up at the wedding of Ida and Theodore. The roads were bare on that day so they used a horse and buggy but they were frozen and very rough.
Ida and Theodore had a daughter born Jan. 22, 1901 two years before I was born. They had a son, Norman, about a year younger than me and a younger son, Floyd, born Jan. 23.
My mother was born Jan. 9, 1882. She was born on Schang Road in the town of Wales. Schang Road turns off from route 78 just north of Wales Hollow. It turns north for a short distance then turns east further on it turns south then east again and ends on Dutch Hollow Road north of Dutch Hollow Evangelical Church which is about 2 miles north of Strykersville.
My mother was christened Wilhelmina Merlau. Her first name was so long that they gave her no middle name. Her sister Nettie Louise was over 3 years older. She was born in September 1878. Her brother Herbert Adolph was born Nov. 1, 1885. She had a brother George born in 1875 who lived only a few weeks.
She had another brother who died in infancy who I believe was younger than Uncle Herbert. I don't know his name or where he was buried. The grave stone of George is still standing near the grave of his parents.
My grandfather's name was Charles Frederick. He was born in 1848 and died in the spring of 1908.
My grandmother was born Mary Kopp in 1850. She had one sister Sarah (Sawyers) and John, William, Adolph, and Fred (also George). John was older than my grandmother and was a Civil War Veteran. He was wounded at the battle of Cold Harbor, Va. the first week of June 1864. My mother's Aunt Lehne married George Kopp the brother of my grandmother whom I forgot to mention. Uncle George was older than Grandmother and was born in 1848. They had one son George Jr. their only child. Aunt Lehne died rather young but Uncle George never remarried.
Louis Hoffower father of Alice and Ida Yaw remarried. That's all I know about him.
My grandmother Merlau said her mother was born in 1811 and came to the U.S.A. when she was 9 or 11 years old. (more of this later)
My mother's grandparents are all buried in the cemetery where her parents are buried but all the grave stones where they are buried have disappeared. I am sorry I didn't visit that part of the cemetery in 1932 when I visited the graves of my grandparents a year after grandmother died. We attended a church picnic that summer in an old house across the road from the Evangelical Church. The Church owned the old house at that time and the cemetery was a short distance up the road to the east of there.
About 1970 I visited the cemetery. I could only find the graves of my grandparents, two uncles, Christopher and Phillip and Elizabeth, the wife of Phillip.
In 1978 I visited the town clerk of the town of Sheldon near Strykersville, where I received my birth certificate 10 years before. I wanted to know if she had the death records of any of my mother's grandparents. She said her records only went back to 1882, the year of my mother's birth. All of my mother's grandparents died before then except her grandmother Kopp, whom she could remember when she was quite young. She found that Mary Kopp died in 1887 at age 78. So she was born in 1809 not 1811. My grandmother got her 9's and 11's mixed up.
She found the name of John Haberlay but no dates. He may have been the father of Mary Kopp. I understood my mother to say her grandma Kopp's maiden name was Haverlay but I must have misunderstood her or she had misunderstood the name. I couldn't fine Haverlay in the Buffalo Telephone book but I did find the name Haberlay. I found 2 or 3 people with that name.
Mary Kopp was born in Alsace in France called Elsass in German and pronounced Elcess. My grandmother said her father came from Hessen but I didn't ask if she knew of any city near where he was born. He could have been born in Hesse Darmstadt, Hesse Nassau or Hesse Kassel.
The Hessians who fought for England in the American Revolution were from Hesse Kassel but some of the Germans came from Brunswick, Germany. The Duke of Brunswick commanded all the German troops who fought under Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga.
I got the above information from the American Heritage Magazine.
In the top drawer of my chest next to my bed is a slip of paper I received from Al Kidder of Alexander about the Perry family. His father Allie and Uncle Perry Kidder were cousins of Grandma Tharnish.
Williams Perry Born 1771 may have been born in Rhode Island as that is where Oliver H. Perry was born who was a distant relative according to Wms. B. Perry.
Wms. Perry married Mariane Bannard 1793.
Williams Perry born 1795
Joseph Norman Perry - 1796
After that at two year intervals, I don't remember the dates
Lahonas Perry
Loran "
Asaph "
Maray "
There were two more brothers, I don't remember their names.
Joseph N. Perry was married twice. 1st to Mary Ann. 2nd wife Deborah Loomis.