Bucks County PA Archives Biographies.....Eyre, Isaac
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joe Patterson, Patricia Bastik & Susan Walters Dec 2009

Source: History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania; edited by J.H. Battle; A. Warner & Co.; 1887
Newtown Township


   ISAAC EYRE retired farmer, P.O. Newtown, was born in 
Philadelphia, Pa., October 10, 1819, and is a son of Isaac 
and Eleanor (Cooper) Eyre.  His paternal grandfather, Isaac 
Eyre, a native of Chester county, this state, and of English 
descent, was a son of William Eyre, a pioneer of Chester 
county.  In Thorpe's catalogue of the deeds of Battle Abbey 
is found the following legendary account of the name of 
Ayres, formerly Eyre.  The first of this family was named 
Truelove, one of the followers of William the Conqueror.  At 
the battle of Hastings, A. D. 960, Duke William was thrown 
from his horse and his helmet beaten into his face, which 
Truelove observing, pulled off, and horsed him again.  The 
Duke told him:  "Thou shalt hereafter from Truelove be 
called Eyre (or Air), because thou hast given me the air I 
breathe."  After the battle the Duke, on inquiring 
concerning him, found him severely wounded.  He ordered that 
he should be given the utmost care, and on his recovery gave 
him landing Derby in reward for his services, and the leg 
and thigh in armor cut off for his crest, an honorary badge 
still worn by all the Eyres in England, and the land is 
still in the name of Eyre.   William Eyre, of Chester, now 
in Delaware county, the first known of the family in 
America, was a large landholder.  Isaac, his youngest son, 
was also a large landowner in Chester, and was a magistrate 
for many years.  His first wife was a daughter of Jonas 
Preston, a pioneer miller of Middletown, who built the first 
mill at Bridgetown on Core creek, and who afterward 
established the Brandywine mills at Wilmington, Del., and 
died there.  Our subject's maternal grandfather was Isaac 
Cooper, of Camden, N. J., a descendant of William and 
Margaret Cooper, who settled in Burlington, N. J., in 1678.  
William Cooper was a member of the colonial legislature of 
New Jersey in 1681, and was also a commissioner for laying 
out lands in that province, and became the owner of the land 
whereon the city of Camden, N. J., is now built, and 
established the ferry between there and Philadelphia.  Isaac 
Eyre, the father of our subject, was born in Chester in 
1778.  He learned the trade of shipbuilder in Philadelphia, 
and was in Daniel Boone's time a builder of gunboats in 
Kentucky for eighteen months.  After that he embarked in 
business in Philadelphia, and was a prominent builder of 
vessels there for many years.  In 1828 he removed to 
Middletown, to the farm now occupied by Malachi White.  He 
died in Attleboro, now Langhorne, January 26, 1843. He had 
ten children, six of whom grew to maturity:  William, Mary, 
Joseph, Edward, Preston and Isaac.   Isaac was reared in 
Middletown from 9 years of age.  He was married in 1842 to 
Elizabeth, daughter of Caleb and Mary (James) Knight, of 
Byberry.  The issue of this union was two children:  William 
and Mary E.   The latter married Thomas Thompson, of 
Montgomery county.  Isaac Eyre was engaged in farming until 
1871, when he retired and removed to Newtown, where he now 
resides. He still owns what was formerly known as the Joseph 
Jenks farm, of forty-five acres, in Middletown.