Welcome to the biography of Benjamin Parker Naylor!

Benjamin Parker Naylor

This is one of the oldest names in Eugene Township hostory and is one of the extremely few early settlers whose name still continues. Of all the names on the Map of First Land Owners only Naylor, Patrick and Porter are still here in 1962.

The Naylor Family here was founded by two brothers, James P. and Benjamin, who came here from near Dayton, Ohio, in 1828 and in 1829 respectively.   Both were married and brought families with them.  Benjamin apparently did not enter any land but James P. and his son William L. entered land in Sections 20 and 28, T. 17N, R. 10W.  Both lived in Eugene, James building the house now owned y Mrs. Jessie Hathaway, north of the cemetery, and spending his life there.  Benjamin's dwelling place is unknown now.  Both brothers were listed in the 1850 census, James P. as a carpenter and Benjamin as a farmer.  Benjamin's descendants continued to be farmers whereas James P.'s two sons, William L. and Wilson both became very successful merchants.

The Benjamin Naylor branch is far more numerous and is the one represented by the Naylor's living here now in 1962.

As mentioned before, Benjamin and his wife Mary were listed in the 1850 census but not in the 1860.  When they came here from Ohio in 1829 they brought three of their four children with them; the fourth was born here.

The diagram of Benjamin Naylor follows: [see the Naylor outline]

Some things which cannot be shown on a diagram can be mentioned here.

It will be noticed that Benjamin's son John M. was married a second time, the second wife being a widow, Mrs. Louisa Sturm.  She brought two Sturm children with her, Alice Sturm born in 1854, and George Sturm born in 1857.  Alice Sturm later married William Stakely and after his death she married David Commens and they became the parents of Warren, Ferd, and Pearl.

Benjamin's daughter Rebecca married Samuel Wesley Malone in 1831, and this was the beginning of the Malone family a once numerous and prominent family represented here, now in 1962, only by Mrs. Bertha Millikin.

Daughter Mary was married to John Rutherford in 1870, and that is about all the information available about her now.

Lewis T. and his wife Ellander Jane did well toward keeping the Naylor name going as they had two children, two of them dying in childhood leaving   the eight shown in the Benjamin Naylor diagram.  All four of his sons remained in Eugene Township and thus the family was not so scattered as were so many of the pioneer families through the years.

Lewis T. was one of the principal organizers of the "new" part of the Eugene Cemetery in 1891 and was one of the trustees for many years.  The oldest identifiable graves in the old part of the......

The rest of this was cut off and not sent to me, if anyone has a copy, I would like to see what else is said about this family.