THE PRINTED WORD: Lydia Jeffries Grier (1790, PA. - 1874, IN)

 Recently,  hunting down a line of people named GREER in Wayne Co., Indiana I was frustrated by the lack of records from cemeteries and local history works.  There was, as if often the case, several lines of people with the same last name. One often rises to the high level of history, economic or social significance and all others of the surname are forgotten and not important. Many people do not realize that those lovely local history books often only included the names of people who paid for the pleasure of seeing their biographic information saved for posterity.  Some versions of these histories actually attempted to be more even handed and searched out the names of early pioneers - even those who did not stick around - most, however, only recorded the names of the people who were around and who achieved a place in society.

So I began to search using alternate spellings and used the form "GRIER" in Wayne Co., Indiana and discovered a will of 1843 by a John E. Grier, M.D. who named his wife as Lydia Jeffries Grier, his son as J. Caldwell Grier and a daughter as Annie Jeffries Grier. I tracked them back to a line in Bucks Co., Pa. Lydia was daughter of a Quaker named Abraham Jeffries who died while attending a Quaker conference in 1822 in Ohio. He died while at the home of his daughter and son-in-law.

A history, Darlington Family History, identifies the children of Abraham and Martha Way Jeffries. On page 172 it states they had a daughter Lydia who married a John Grier and had children Annie and Caldwell in Clinton Co., Ohio. These children, the book says, died young or unmarried. Many trees on Lydia assign her a death date matching the one for her father stating that she died in 1822 as well.

Below is a capture of part of the will of John E. Grier, 1843, Wayne Co., Indiana.

Lydia remained in Wayne Co., according to census records, a brother Way Jeffries and some sisters were also in the county, and she is listed with them. A Quaker record records her death as "Sydia" by looking at the original it is an elegant script "L".

Oh, and my GREER line? A Millie (Melissa) Greer, born 1817 in Kentucky married her second husband. Lewis CAIN, in Wayne County, Indiana in 1844. She had Carter children from her first marriage and some from her second on the 1850 census there. Who Cain's parents are is a mystery, where he died is a mystery, and if he had a first family - all a mystery.