Lt. Thomas Collyer (1744-1834) NJ > Butler Cty., Ohio
One of the more elusive members of our "Colliers of Massachusetts" clan has been Lt. Thomas (5) Collyer (Thomas (1), Moses (2), Thomas (3), John, Sr. (4)), probably born in or near Basking Ridge, Somerset County, New Jersey about 1744. (Moses Collier (ca. 1625 - March 17, 1683/84), son of the 1635 immigrants to Hingham, Massachusetts, lived in Hingham and Boston until near the end of his life, when he and his family removed to Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey.This was a new town largely settled by New Englanders. Thomas (3) seems to have been the first of the New Jersey family to adopt the spelling "Collyer," which was followed thereafter.)
I have recently found indirect evidence proving that the Thomas Collyer of Basking Ridge is identical to the Lt. Thomas Collyer of the New Jersey Continentals, who collected a Revolutionary War pension in Butler County, Ohio from 1832 on, and probably died there on August 24, 1834.In March 1835 a Butler County court made Pierson Sayre the guardian of Lt. Thomas's orphaned son, Ira M., who was then 18 years old. Mr. Sayre was then a well known citizen of Butler County, but had been born not far from Basking Ridge, and was married to Catherine Lewis of that town in 1786. Catherine's sister, Rachel Lewis, was the wife of John Collyer, Jr., Lt. Thomas Collyer's brother.This identification of the Lewis sisters and their husbands is my proof of the identity of Lt. Thomas.
The New Jersey Revolutionary War records I have seen are somewhat sparse, but iI believe that Thomas served at least 2 1/2 years from Somerset County. DAR records indicate that he was in the battles of Piscataway, Short Hills, Monmouth, Springfield and Elizabethtown. Brother John, Jr. and a Moses Collyer (probably an unidentified cousin) also served in the war as enlisted men.
While John Collyer, Jr. remained in Basking Ridge or vicinity for the rest of his life, Thomas seems to left Basking Ridge and removed to Hardiston, Sussex County, New Jersey at some time after August 1790.His sister Rachel and her husband, Captain Jonathan Sutton, also moved to that area at some point.Thomas appears in a Hardiston "census" of June 1793 and he appears on a militia roster of the township in that same year. I have found no early marriage record for Thomas, and these early census "substitutes" for New Jersey give no family information.I do think he was married during his time in New Jersey as the DAR record I have seen indicates that Mary McAdams (mother of Ira M.), who he married in December 1815, was his second wife. I note that in 1815 he was about 71 years old.
Of Thomas's travels from 1793 to 1832 I have little solid information.I speculate that he may be the Thomas Collyer who appears in the Census of Derry, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1800.This family consisted of husband and wife, 1 daughter and two sons. Some Basking Ridge families are known to have migrated to this part of western Pennsylvania.Pierson Sayre (see above) also lived in Uniontown, Fayette County, PA for a time. About 1817 Thomas was living in Kentucky, as son Ira reported in the 1880 Census that he had been born in that state.
A Thomas Collyer was granted land in Blooming Grove, Franklin County, Indiana in 1830, but this was NOT our Lt. Thomas from New Jersey.Mary K. Guinn, a researcher of that family, has proven that the Franklin County family was originally from Virginia.
Among a family living in Warren County, Indiana in the 1840 - 1860 period was a Thomas Collyer, born about 1786 in New Jersey.At least two researchers are actively working on this Collyer family, but I am not aware of a certain link to "our" Massachusetts/New Jersey clan to this point.
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Ira M. Collyer was born January 8, 1817, in Kentucky as stated above. He was on the fire department in Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio in 1839.He married Martha Ann Roberts, born about 1824 in Ohio.They had at least 9 children (Mary E., Evaline, John R., Joseph L., Carrie W., Ira S., William, Edith, Frederick M.), and at the time of both the 1870 and 1880 Censuses were living in Carroll County, Kentucky. Ira was a merchant in Prestonville, KY in 1880.
I would like to correspond with and share information on this Collyer family.I am in the final stages of preparing a genealogy of the first five generations of the "Colliers of Massachusetts," with later generations to follow, and want to continue filling in the New Jersey lines as much as possible.
Wade Collier
"Colliers of Massachusetts" Project
Trumbull County, Ohio and Lunenburg, Mass.