From: "Biographical Review of Cass, Schuyler and
Brown Counties, Illinois 1892", by Biographical Review Publishing
Company, Chicago, Illinois; pages 523-524, a reprinted by Stevens
Publishing Co., Astoria, Ill., 1971, is sold by the Schuyler County
Historical Society, Rushville, Illinois.
James W. Bleyer was born near Franklin, Franklin township,
Pennsylvania, June 17, 1860. His father, Samuel Bleyer, was born in
Connecticut, and his father, Alex. Bleyer, was a native of the New
England States. The ancestry of the family is Scotch. Mr. Alex. Bleyer
removed from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, and died in that State, and
his son was reared in the State of his birth. Here he followed farming
until he removed to Williamsport and remained a few years, and then
returned to Franklin county, and still resides on a farm. The maiden
name of his first wife was Barbara Kane, and she was the mother of
James. She was a native of Connecticut, and she died in Franklin
county, Pennsylvania, in 1875. James was reared and educated in his
native State. He was fifteen years old when his mother died, and from
that time he cared for himself. He had learned the printer's trade in
the office of the Press at Chambersburg, at the age of fourteen, worked
there one year, and with the exception of a few months has followed the
trade ever since, and has set type in the principal offices east of the
Mississippi river. In May, 1891, he bought the office and good will of
the Brown County Republican, a weekly paper devoted to the interests of
the Republican party.
He was married in 1890, to Hattie May. She was born in St.
Louis, Missouri, the daughter of David and Alice May. Mr. Bleyer is a
member of Cincinnatus Lodge, No. 287, K. of P., and of the National
Telegraph Union. He has always been a sound Republican.
