WILLIAM C. MOYERS, a prominent farmer of Pope County, who has resided on his farm since 1850, was born in Lincoln County, Tenn., in 1826. His father, who bore the name of Peter, was born of German parents in Pennsylvania, and Peter Movers, the grandfather of William C, came from Germany with his bride, and settled in Pennsylvania. He joined Washington's army, and it is believed served through the war. He was well educated in Germany, and after the close of the Revolutionary War settled in Virginia, near Woodstock, Shenandoah County, subsequently removing to Tennessee to the home of their son, Peter, where they died at the ages of one hundred and five, and one hundred and one, respectively, within a few years of each other. They had five sons, viz: John, Peter, Henry, Samuel and Jacob, who all removed to Tennessee, but John afterward returned to Virginia. Jacob died in California, and the rest all reared large families. Peter married in Nashville, Tenn., Elizabeth Conel, who it is believed came from Wales. She died when William C. was a small child, the youngest of her five children. Their names were Matilda, the wife of A. J. Smith, who died in middle life, leaving five children; Isaac II., who died in Hardin County, at seventy-seven years of age; Joel S., who died in Pope County, a young man of twenty-one years; John C, who died in 1859, on a Mississippi River steamer, aged thirty-six years; and William C. The father of these children died in Tennessee about 1836, when sixty-six years of age.
William C. Moyers was left alone very young, and lived two years with Austin Smith, afterward six years with Samuel Bell, and on December 15, 1839, started on foot for Illinois, coming, however, a part of the way by steamboat. He walked seventy-five miles to Nashville, and was fifteen days en route from Tennessee. His elder brothers and sisters had come to Illinois some years before and had settled in the wilds of the country while it was new. He was married October 11, 1848, to Miss Martha Jane S. Barger, a daughter of Jacob S. Barger, who was born in Pope County in October, 1828. Her parents, who were prosperous farmers, came to Illinois from Virginia as early as 1818, and had seven children. The father died July 23, 1861, at the age of sixty-six years, and his wife lived a widow twenty-seven years, dying in her eighty-third year. She reared seven children, of whom four are living, viz: Mrs. Moyers; Amanda, widow of John Gulluck; Margaret widow of Stephen Morse; and Jacob, a farmer in Monroe Precinct, Pope County. Mr. and Mrs. Moyers have buried one infant son, and also a son, James W., in his thirteenth year. They have now seven children, viz: Isaac, a farmer of Saline County, who has a wife and six children; John, a farmer of Saline County, who has nine children; N. Green, a farmer on the old homestead with four children; Stephen, a farmer on a part of the old farm, with two children; Priscilla, wife of Henry Fulgham, a farmer near by, who has five children; Amanda, wife of Harvey Morse, on the old farm with four children; and Mary Jane, a young lady at home.
Mr. Moyers has always been a Democrat in national politics, but in local politics he is non-partisan. He and his wife are at advanced ages, but still in fair health, and have practically retired from hard work and are enjoying a well-earned and merited rest. Mr. Moyers has been a good deal of a hunter and frontiersman, and when he came to this country deer and turkey's were as plentiful as rabbits are now. Black bears, wolves and wild cats were also very common, and their depredations among the poultry of the settlers were numerous and vexatious. He has always carried on mixed farming, and is a man of much more than ordinary}- natural endowments, and had he been reared to letters instead of to labor, he would in all likelihood have been heard from in the world; but like many others his has been a life of patient toil.
Extracted from Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope, and Hardin Counties, Illinois, published in 1893, page 357
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