Problems with "Stories for a Sunday Afternoon"

In his monograph, “Stories for a Sunday Afternoon”, Maynard H Mires presents an unconvincing case his “revolutionary” ancestor Daniel Myers (Miers, Mires), Indian slayer and original settler of the Minisink township, descends from Delaware Quaker families, Miers and Cummings.


Mires is correct in stating Ann Cummings daughter of Enoch Cumming married John Miers between 1747-48 but the statement that the Cummings family belonged to the Established Church is false. Minutes of Duck Creek Monthly Meetings show that Ann Cummings and John Miers married with the approval of the Quaker community. 


Minutes of Quaker meetings held in Chester county show Cummings daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, committed to Quaker principles. Moreover, Enoch Cummings’s second marriage to staunch Quaker, widow Sarah Blundell (nee Miers formerly Ozburn and Rowland) met with the approval of the Quaker community.


Ann Cummings married widower John Miers, the son of John and Mary Haworth and not John Miers, the son of James, born about 1723 named in his grandmother Mary (Haworth) Miers will probated, 1727.


Mire’s assertion that John Miers (1723) was the son of James Miers is supported by a transcription on Ancestry which reveals precisely that. However, on the image of Mary Haworth’s probated will abstract, the name of John Miers (1723) is missing.
Abstract Wills Sussex, Delaware
Lewes, Mary Miers widow
To son John m Margery Fisher (illegible) Jane
To son James (ditto)
Comment: James Miers m. Margery Fisher
To son Daniel Palmer
To son Jonathan Ozbun
Grandchild Sarah Rowland
Grandchild Samuel Rowland
Grandchild John Rowland
Grandchild Sarah Palmer
Grandchild Joseph Palmer
Daughter Mary Palmer
Daughter Sarah Ozbun
Comment: Sarah Ozbun m. Samuel Blundell


Further evidence John Miers (1723) did not exist is found in The Haworth Miers letters. Correspondence between Mary Miers, Sussex, Delaware and her brother James Haworth, England are an important resource for ancestral studies. The letters present an inviolable representation of family relationships and lineage at a precise period. After Mary Miers death her son John Miers maintained contact with his uncle James Haworth. By letter dated 25 October 1745, to his uncle James Haworth, John Miers discusses his immediate family: the death of his mother seventeen years ago, the deaths of his brother James who left four daughters and sister Mary, some eight years previously, who left to survive her two sons and a daughter. John Miers also mentioned his sister Sarah “yet living”, with six children from four marriages.


John Miers (1723) existed because of a transcription error made by a human. However, excommunicating John Miers (1723) from the family fold, for marrying out of unity, fits Maynard H Mires purpose of giving his revolutionary ancestor gentrified family connections. Unfortunately, several genealogies have taken Mires superficial research at face value.


This paper is available freely on the on condition that anyone who consults understands that its copyright rests with its author Sarah Baird, and due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from, this paper. Citation: “Sarah Baird, “Problems with “Stories for a Sunday Afternoon” 16 September 2018.
U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935, Swarthmore College; Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; Quaker Meeting Records imaged Ancestry.com.
Delaware, Wills and Probate Records, 1676-1971, Abstracts of Wills, Sussex County, Delaware, 1700s-1800s; Probate Place: Sussex, Delaware, imaged Ancestry.com.
Saxton, Thomas R., “Living in Two Worlds: Kinship Networks and Pennsylvania’s Integration into the Atlantic World” (2011).Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1238, 158-159. “John Miers to James Haworth, Lewistown [Lewes, Del.], October 25, 1745, in ―A Collection of Letters Written at Various Times from America,‖ Historical Abstracts, Box 34, pp. 38-41, Brinton Coxe Collection (collection no. 1983), HSP.”

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