The Lawler Farm

Betty and Mary Louise Lawler and Jean English @1938

As a child, Mom (Jean English) spent many hours on the Lawler Farm.  This was the farm of  her Great Aunt and Uncle, Eva (Baier) and William Lawler.   On my visit in July, I was fortunate to not only see this farm where she had spent parts of her summers but to meet Steve Lawler and his wife Brenda who are still living on the farm as well as Martha Bowen, who lives on a farm just across the way and with her sister Margaret offers a B&E (as she says that is eggs, you get to cook them yourself.)  I toured the house and it looked like a wonderful place to stay.  Check it out  Irish Ridge B&E.

Evie Lawler and Jean English @1935

John English in the tree

The area is gorgeous, some of the most luscious farms I ever seen.  If it weren't a couple thousand miles away, I would be renting that house on a regular basis!

Grandpa English, who had spent many summers on the Baier Farm which was just minutes away, also loved to visit.  Although Eva was his Aunt, she was just a few years older than he.  Although I didn't know Grandpa well, my memories were all pretty much of a fun loving man who would definitely be climbing the trees!

The Original Building

Eva's Grotto

Steve and Martha

More Lawler Farm Pictures

1883 Plat Map.  Note Bowen Farm and Lawler Family Farm in lower right corner

Baier Immigration

I have looked for years, and years, and years.  There were so many clues, not the least Joseph's naturalization papers which give an arrival date in New York City of 15th Oct 1848.  Yet, I never found the record.  Fortunately I also never gave up hope....so when Family Search and the Ellis Island Foundation announced the were working together to put all New York arrival records online I thought time to check again. 

It took half an hour to find but here is the record with a few surprises and perhaps a few mistakes, and definitely major mistakes in the indexing. 

First surprise was the spelling of the surname, BEYERLE.  Then came a major indexing mistake, Kuniguda's index entry gave her surname as Beyvile. 

Now while the next indexing mistake I'm going to mention is explainable by the fact the family was on two frames of the microfilm, this one is unfathomable.  Kunigunda has no surname listed just ditto from Johan above.

The second indexing mistake is that Johan's birthplace is listed as Bohemia.  It is obvious when you put the list back together that he is grouped with the rest of the family as being from Bavaria, but an indexer did not see that on the page he was on.

Now the next part is the ages.  If I didn't have the corroboration of Joseph's arrival being in Oct of 1848, albeit the 9th rather than the 15th, I might have wondered a little harder whether I had the right family.

The reason is the ages given.  I believe that Joseph's age on the manifest is in error.  Everything else found supports the 1835 birth date he always used.  I'm guessing the numbers were transposed and should have read 12 rather than 21. 

The ages of Johan and Kunigunda are also of interest.  If Johan is 51 he was born about 1797 rather than 1806 and Kunigunda abt 1799.

My problem with those ages is that Kunigunda would have been 47 at the birth of son Johann.  The 1850 census gives Kuniguda's age as 46 and Johann as 40.

In fact only son Johann has the correct age of 2.  Daughters Anna and Matgaretta are listed as 4 and 6 but they are a little older.  Other records are also inconsistent.

But, in spite of all the discrepancies, I do believe this is the right record. The names are right, no known family member is missing and they are in the right order.  Of interest is the A Bauer(l) listed directly below the family.  Is he related?