Cambria County Pioneers, 1910, by James L. Swank, Cambria County, PA - John Royer, Huguenot Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ ________________________________________________ CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS HON. CYRUS L. PERSHING A Collection of Brief Biographical and other Sketches Relating to the Early History of Cambria County, Pennsylvania. by JAMES M. SWANK PHILADELPHIA: No. 261 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 1910. JOHN ROYER, HUGUENOT. 53 JOHN ROYER, HUGUENOT. FROM THE JOHNSTOWN DAILY TRIBUNE OF SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1899. REVISED IN 1910. AS ALL readers of Pennsylvania history know, the early settlers of William Penn's province were drawn from many European countries. Before the granting of his famous charter in 1681 emigrants from Sweden and Holland and a few Finns and some English had made settlements on the Delaware. After the charter had been granted England and Wales sent large numbers of Quakers and a few Episcopalians; the Continent sent still larger numbers of Lutherans and other Protestants and a few Roman Catholics; Ireland and France also sent a few Roman Catholics, chiefly to Philadelphia, and the North of Ireland sent many Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Many Protestants came from Germany, France, Switzerland, and Holland. The French, Swiss, and Dutch immigrants have been confounded with the German immigrants because they usually spoke their South German dialect and were of similar religious convictions, and also because they sailed from the same ports and settled in the same localities as the more numerous Germans. They were thus very naturally regarded as forming a part of the great German wave of immigration to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. Thousands of these French, Swiss, and Dutch immigrants have left descendants who are known as Pennsylvania Germans but who are not Germans at all. Most of the French Protestants who emigrated to Pennsylvania came originally from the provinces of Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne, in Eastern France, although these emigrants had for some time previously, owing to religious persecution at home, lived in more friendly German, Dutch, and Swiss districts. These French Protestants were known as Huguenots. Other Huguenots came from other provinces in France, and these emigrated in large numbers to 54 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. New York, South Carolina, and other colonies and provinces of the New World, including Pennsylvania. Some Huguenots had found an asylum in England and Ireland after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 before emigrating to this country. Among the Huguenot emigrants from Central France to Pennsylvania in the early days were three brothers named Royer. From one of these brothers came John Royer and his descendants. The brothers settled in Lancaster county. The Rev. Mr. Stapleton, of Lewisburg, Union county, an authority upon Huguenot emigration to Pennsylvania, says that Sebastian Royer came to Lancaster county in 1721. We next hear of the family name during the Revolution, when Samuel Royer, the father of John Royer, above mentioned, was a commissary in the Revolutionary army. This Samuel Royer had a brother named Sebastian. In Baird's Huguenot Emigration to America I find mention made of Noe Royer, who emigrated to South Carolina between 1681 and 1686. He was the grandson of Sebastian Royer, a native of Tours, the principal town in the province of Tourraine, in Central France. Noe Royer himself was born in Tours. His father's name was also Noe Royer. I mention his ancestry because of the coincidence in the name of his ancestor, Sebastian Royer, and that of the Lancaster immigrant mentioned by Mr. Stapleton, and also of Sebastian, the brother of Samuel Royer. Samuel Royer's wife was Catherine Laubshaw, a native of Switzerland. There are Royers still living in Lancaster county. John Royer, the subject of this sketch, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, on November 22, 1778. We first hear of him as a clerk at Chambers' Iron Works, about four miles from Loudon, in Path valley, Franklin county. These works embraced Mt. Pleasant furnace and forge, which were built about 1783 by three brothers, William, Benjamin, and George Chambers. The works were burned in 1843. In 1800 John Dunlap built Logan furnace, near Bellefonte, in Centre county; and about 1805-6-7 John Royer and his brother-in-law, Andrew Boggs, operated this furnace under lease froth Mr. Dunlap, the firm name being Boggs & Royer. JOHN ROYER, HUGUENOT. 55 We next hear of Mr. Royer as the builder, between 1808 and 1810, of Cove forge, in Blair county, then Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, on the Frankstown branch of the Juniata river, about seventeen miles east of Hollidaysburg. Mr. Royer carried on Cove forge for ten or twelve years. In the spring of 1821 he moved from Cove forge to Williamsburg, in Huntingdon county, and in the same year he was the successful Whig candidate for the lower branch of the Pennsylvania Legislature, defeating David R. Porter, the Democratic candidate, also an ironmaster, who was at the time one of the owners of Sligo forge, on Spruce creek, Huntingdon county, and who was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1838 and again in 1841, serving six years. In 1823 Mr. Royer moved from Williamsburg to a point on the Kiskiminitas river below Saltsburg, but on the Westmoreland side of the river, to engage in the manufacture of salt in company with his brother-in-law, Andrew Boggs, who had laid out the town of Saltsburg in the winter of 1816-17 and had given it its name. From the Kiskiminitas river Mr. Royer moved to Pittsburgh in the spring of 1826, where he opened an iron warehouse. At the end of three years, in the fall of 1829, the Pennsylvania Canal having been completed to Blairsville, Mr. Royer changed his residence to that place, where he acted as the agent for the Pennsylvania and Ohio Transportation Company, goods then being trans-shipped at Blairsville and hauled over the Northern Turnpike to Huntingdon, where they met the eastern division of the canal. Some time in 1832 Mr. Royer moved to Saltsburg, again engaging in the business of making salt, this time at "Boggs's Works," about two miles east of Saltsburg, on the Westmoreland side of the Conemaugh river. In the spring of 1834 Mr. Royer transferred his lease of the above named salt works to George W. Swank and moved to Johnstown, becoming the agent of the Pennsylvania and Ohio line of boats and cars for the transportation of freight and passengers between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The Portage Railroad was opened for business in the spring of that year. In this occupation, for which he was admirably fitted, Mr. Royer spent the next eight or ten years, when ill- 56 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. health compelled him to retire. He was succeeded by William I. Maclay. In the fall of 1838 Mr. Swank also moved his family to Johnstown, where he died on May 29, 1856, at the age of 46 years and a few weeks. He was born in Westmoreland county in 1810 and was my father. Mr. Royer died at his residence on Washington street, then called Canal street, east of Franklin street, on March 5, 1850, aged 71 years, three months, and thirteen days. His popularity at Johnstown is attested by his election in 1841 as the Whig candidate for the lower house of the Legislature from the district composed of Somerset and Cambria counties. Ill-health prevented him from being a candidate for re-election in 1842 and Major John Linton became the Whig candidate and was elected. Mr. Royer was a man of more than ordinary ability. His disposition was genial and his manners were courtly. He was a gentleman of the old school. Mrs. Royer, whose maiden name was Jane Boggs, also a native of Franklin county, but of Scotch-Irish ancestry, survived her husband many years, dying at Johnstown, at the home of her son-in-law, Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing, on October 28, 1869, aged 85 years and seven months. She was born on March 13, 1784. The remains of both Mr. and Mrs. Royer now rest in Grand View cemetery. To Mr. and Mrs. Royer were born eleven children, only two of whom are now living, Sarah Jane, who became the wife of Robert Bingham, and Mary Letitia, who married Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing. We give their names as follows: Catherine, wife of Gen. Edward Hamilton, John Boggs, Samuel J., Theodore, Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Charles D. Pearson, Alfred, Nancy, wife of William L. Shryock, Alexander, Sarah Jane, wife of Robert Bingham, Andrew Francis, and Mary L., wife of Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing. On Sunday, January 22, 1899, Alfred Royer, the last survivor of John Royer's sons, died at the residence of his brother-in-law, William L. Shryock, in Johnstown. Alfred Royer told us that he was the captain of the first train of freight cars that passed over the Portage Railroad from Johnstown to Hollidaysburg. This was in the spring of 1834. For more than fifty years the name of Royer has been prominent in the business and social life of Johnstown.