Marshall County KS Archives Biographies.....Shroyer, Peter 1848 - living in 1917
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com July 21, 2005, 5:38 pm

Author: B. F. Bowen

PETER SHROYER.

    In point of continuous residence Peter Shroyer, the well-known pioneer
farmer, now living retired at Marysville, is the oldest living resident of
Marshall county. He came here in 1857, there being at that time but two other
families within the present confines of the county, and has lived here ever
since. During all that time he has never employed a physician for his own use
and has likewise never had personal use for a dentist, his teeth to this day
being perfectly sound. Mr. Shroyer attributes much of his present soundness of
teeth to the fact that in the early days out here he ate so much frozen bread
and dried buffalo meat that his teeth were kept in perfect condition and he
never developed later troubles of that sort. Mr. Shroyer also claims to have
shucked more corn than any man in Marshall county. He began when five years of
age and even since his retirement from the active labors of the farm continues
to "take a hand" during corn-husking season and can keep up his row with the
best of them.

     Peter Shroyer is a native of the old Buckeye state, but has been a resident
of Marshall county since he was nine years of age, and has consequently been a
witness to and a participant in the development of this county since the
earliest days of settlement hereabout. He was born on a farm in Perry county,
Ohio, near the town of Thornville, July 30, 1848, a son of John and Mary
(Zortman) Shroyer, natives of Pennsylvania, both of Dutch stock, the former a
son of Philip Shroyer and the latter a daughter of Peter Zortman, the Shroyer
and Zortman families being early settlers in Perry county, Ohio. It was there
that John Shroyer was married and established his home. He became a farmer and
was the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of land. In 1853 he sold that farm
for thirty dollars an acre, accepting partial payments for the same, and with
his wife and six children came to Kansas. Three years later he returned to his
old home in Ohio to collect the final payment and found that in the meantime the
farm that he had sold for thirty dollars an acre had been resold for one hundred
and five dollars an acre. John Shroyer and his family crossed the country to
their destination in Marshall county in a "prairie schooner." which they had
amply freighted with provisions for beginning life anew on the plains before
leaving St. Joseph. They had three horses upon arriving in this county, but
these presently died and for ten years John Shroyer conducted his farming
operations with oxen. Upon arriving in this county the Shroyer family settled on
a farm on the Blue river, at the point where the railroad station of Shroyer,
named for the family, is now located, and there erected a log cabin and set up a
home. In that humble habitation the family made their home for years, or until a
more commodious and convenient house could be built.

    When the Shroyers settled in Marshall county there were but two other
families in the county and Indians still were numerous and wild game plentiful.
The markets for the grain raised in this part of the state then were at
Leavenworth and at Atchison and until the railroads came this way a long trip to
market was necessary on the part of the early settlers, while the nearest mill
was at St. Joseph until the Hutchinson mill was built at Marysville. Buffalos
still were roaming the plains in countless numbers and it was the practice of
the settlers to go out on a buffalo drive and put up enough meat for a year's
supply. Wheat was threshed by the primitive method of having the cattle trample
it out, the grain then being winnowed in the wind, but the market for wheat was
so limited in those days that it not infrequently sold for as small a sum as
twenty-five cents a bushel in the Atchison market. John Shroyer put in much of
his time as a freighter and it was while thus employed, in 1863, that he met his
death. He had just returned from a freighting trip to Ft. Kearney and had gone
to Leavenworth for a load of provisions. On coming down a steep hill out of
Leavenworth he fell off his wagon and was killed beneath the wheels. It was
three weeks before word of his death could be brought to his family. His widow
survived him for seven years, her death occurring in 1870, she then being
fifty-four years of age. John Shroyer and his wife were the parents of nine
children, three having been born to them after they came to this county. Of
these the subject of this sketch is the eldest and the others are as follow:
Philip, who owns the old Shroyer farm in Elm Creek township, but is now living
at Granite, Oklahoma, Peter Shroyer's eldest son running the farm for him;
Hiram, who lives near Shroyer; John, who lives in Oklahoma: Benjamin Franklin,
who lives near Oklahoma City; Mrs. Harriet Hammet, of Shroyer; Mrs. Amanda
Griffin, of Blue Rapids: Mrs. Mary Bender, of Commanche, Oklahoma, and Samuel,
of Oklahoma City.

    As noted above. Peter Shroyer was but nine years of age when he came to this
county from Ohio and he grew to manhood on the home farm m Elm Creek township,
from early boyhood taking his part in the work of developing the pioneer farm.
When but a boy he went to St. Joseph and drove back three yoke of oxen. With
these cattle he broke the first ground on the bottoms at Shroyer, continuing to
use cattle in his farming operations until he was twenty-five years of age. When
twenty-one years of age he homesteaded a tract of land across the river from
Shroyer and in that same year, 1869, bought an additional "eighty." For twelve
years, or until his marriage in 1881, Mr. Shroyer "batched" on his place and
after his marriage continued to live there for twenty-four years, at the end of
which time he retired from the active labors of the farm and moved to
Marysville, where he and his family are very pleasantly situated, having a
beautiful home in the north part of the city, the house being surrounded by
attractive shrubbery and a five-acre grove which forms part of the place,
lending greatly to the attractiveness of the same.

    In 1881 Peter Shroyer was united in marriage to Emma Rowe, who was born in
Iowa in 1864, daughter of Allen and Euphemia (Riley) Rowe, who came to Marshall
county about 1875, and to this union four children have been born, namely:
Violet, who is at home; Jesse E., who is operating his uncle's farm at Shroyer,
the old original Shroyer place; Mrs. Rose Woods, of Joplin, Missouri, and Peter
A., who is at home. Mr. and Mrs. Shroyer are members of the Church of Christ
(Scientist) and take a warm interest in the affairs of the same. Mr. Shroyer is
a Republican and has even given his close attention to local political affairs,
but has not been a seeker after public office. As the oldest living pioneer of
Marshall county his life is a veritable Epitome of the history of this county
and there is perhaps no person in the county who has a more vivid or distinct
recollection of the incidents of pioneer days hereabout than he. In the days
when he drove the three yoke of oxen from St. Joseph to Marshall county the site
of the present city of Marysville was marked by the presence of a lone shanty
and there was nothing but an Indian trail leading to his home at Shroyer.
Despite the hardships he underwent during the pioneer days, Mr. Shroyer is still
a very vigorous man and continues to take an active interest in current affairs.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

History of Marshall County, Kansas: its people, industries, and institutions
by
Emma E. Forter

Indianapolis, Ind.: B.F. Bowen & Co. (1917)

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