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Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing
Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",
published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
JOHN C. BYERS, a retired farmer,
lives one and one fourth miles north of Mondovi. He was born in Carroll
county, Illinois, July 13, 1855, and is of Scotch ancestry. His father,
David Byers, was born in Blair county, Pennsylvania, and was one of the
early settlers in Carroll county, Illinois, coming there in 1827.
He lived there until his death in 1883, being then seventy years of age.
The subject's mother was Susan (Cowen) Byers, of German-Scotch descent,
also a native of Blair county, and she died in her fifty-ninth year in
Carroll county, Illinois. Besides the subject of this sketch, the
family consisted originally of the following brothers and one sister: George
C., of Carroll county, who is quite a prominent stock speculator on the
Chicago Board of Trade; David C., a retired farmer in Carroll county; Edward
C., deceased; and Mary A., also dead.
John C. Byers was reared on a farm and received
a good common school education. In 1877 he came to Sacramento, California,
and divided his time between that state, Illinois and Oregon from that
year until 1880, when he came to Medical Lake, Washington. In the
spring of 1881 he went out with a surveying corps on the line of the N.
P. railroad, and until 1884 he followed surveying and bridge building for
this road, then came to his present homestead. He came here with
limited means, and went to work with a will to improve and better his condition.
John C. Byers was married, December 25, 1887,
to Lydia A. Forney, whom he knew as a child in Carroll county, where she
was born. Her parents, Samuel and Sabina (Teeter) Forney, are both
living in Springdale, Washington. Mrs. Byers died, May 17, 1892.
Mr. Byers took his homestead of raw land and
converted it into one of the select farms of the Big Bend; and to it he
has added land until he now owns in all six hundred and forty-four acres,
most of which is good grain land. He is a well-to-do man and an exemplary
citizen.
He is a member of the K. P., Lincoln lodge,
No. 50, of Davenport.
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