BIO:  Mathias SMYSER, York County, PA

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Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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Part II, Biographical Sketches, York Borough, Pg 47

MATHIAS SMYSER, the youngest son of the immigrant, resided on the mansion farm 
of his father, where he quietly pursued the useful and respectable occupation of 
an agriculturist.  He was a man of the strictest integrity.  He was in the 
Revolutionary war as a teamster, driving a baggage wagon.  He lived to the age 
of eighty-four years, much longer than the other two of these brothers, and left 
five sons and two daughters, namely:  Catharine, Polly, George, Jacob, Mathias, 
Philip and Henry.  A centennial celebration was held by the descendants of 
Mathias Smyser, the elder, on the mansion farm now owned by Samuel Smyser, in 
West Manchester Township, on May 3, 1845.  It occurred on Saturday, and was a 
bright and pleasant day.  The meeting organized by electing George Smyser 
president, Jacob Smyser (of Michael) and Martin Ebert, vice presidents, and 
Philip Smyser and Rev. S. Oswald, secretaries.  After a sumptuous dinner, the 
exercises were opened by Prof. Charles Hay, now of Gettysburg, and an address 
was made by the venerable president, who yet remembered seeing his aged 
grandfather, whose location on that spot, 100 years before, they were then 
celebrating.  A series of resolutions was passed, letters read from absent ones, 
an historical narration prepared by Philip Smyser was read, and an address 
delivered by Rev. S. Oswald.  The following beautiful sentiment is an extract 
from his speech:  “My thoughts while here have been made up of some sort of 
pleasant mingling together of the present, the past and the future.  At one time 
my imagination carries me back 100 years.  I look up, I look around me, but I 
see naught except the blue vault of heaven, and a dark, dreary forest, enlivened 
only by the sweet warbling of the feathered songsters, and the rapid darting of 
the squirrel among the wide-spreading branches of the forest oak.  I look again 
and see a solitary adventurer, firmly treading this thick forest: the sturdy oak 
falls before the ax wielded by his vigorous arms; and soon where once that 
forest stood now waves the golden grain.  But with the rapidity of thought I am 
carried back to this hour, and here I see a numerous assembly, the descendants 
of that hardy adventurer, congregated to celebrate the day which dates the 
flight of a century, since first he called these lands his own.”  Prof. Charles 
Hay made a short address, after which a resolution was adopted christening the 
old homestead “Rugelbach,” in honor of the birth-place of their ancestor.  The 
meeting adjourned recommending “that future generations hold a similar 
celebration in the year 1945, and further, that we entertain the hope that this 
homestead of our ancestor be held in the name of Smyser.”  At this meeting, a 
committee was appointed to ascertain the number of descendants of Mathias 
Smyser, the elder, then living, reported as follows:  Descendants of Col. 
Michael Smyser, 244; of Jacob Smyser, 177; Mathias Smyser, 160; Dorothy, married 
to Peter Hoke, 240; Sabina, married to Jacob Swope, of Lancaster County, 54; 
Rosanna, married to George Maul, who moved to Virginia, 66; Elizabeth, married 
to Leonard Eichelberger, who lived near Dillsburg, 116; Ann Mary, married to 
Martin Ebert (whose father came from Germany in the same vessel with her 
father), 64; and Susanna, married to Philip Ebert, 47; in all, 1,162.