27. David R SILVER
was born on 21 Feb 1832 in Burke (now Yancey) County NC. He died on 26 Aug
1911 in Kona (Mitchell) NC. He served in the military in Civil War. Was promoted
to Lieutenant in Co K of the 58th North Carolina Regiment on August 15, 1863.
SILVER, D. R.: 1st Lt.,/Capt., Co. K, Commissioned 7/27/62 at
_________________. Res. Mitchell Co.
He was married to Elizabeth BAKER on 25 Nov 1856. David
R SILVER and Elizabeth BAKER had the following children:
+119 i.
Mary SILVER.
+120 ii.
Robert E (Bob) SILVER.
+121 iii.
Nancy Anne SILVER.
+122 iv.
Elisha (Lish) P SILVER.
He was married
to Sarah (Sally) LEDFORD on 29 Jan 1871 in Mitchell County NC.
David R SILVER and Sarah (Sally) LEDFORD had the following children:
123 i.
Rachel SILVER.
+124 ii.
Elbert SILVER.
+125 iii.
Margaret (Maggie) SILVER.
+126 iv.
Frank SILVER.
+127 v.
William (Will) SILVER.
128 vi.
Lizzie (Elizabeth) SILVER was born on 10 May 1878 in Kona (Yancy) NC.
She died on 26 May 1948 in Kona (Yancey) NC. She was buried on 27 May 1948
in Family Cemetery Kona NC. This eulogy was written for Elizabeth (Lizzie) Silver
at her death in 1924.
We mourn the passing of our community's most humble citizen, Lizzie (Elizabeth)
Silver. She died on the morning of May 26th (1948) after a long illness with
cancer of the bowels, and was buried the next afternoon in the family cememery,
now the cemetery of our church, where her foreparents dating back to her great-grandfather
all lie buried. Our pastor, Rev Paul McKinney assisted by Rev Clarence Buchanan
and Rev James Fowler, conducted her funeral service which was the first ever
held in our church. She was also first buried in our cemetery since 1914 when
the Italian worker was killed in a spar mine in the fork of the river was buried
there, and the second since the burial of her father, David Silver, in 1911.
She was the youngest living member of a large family of brothers and sisters
of which only three survive her. Will and Frank Silver, and sister Maggie Thomas.
Born 10 May 1878, she was 70 years and 16 days old and had lived out her promised
allotment of life.
Lizzie was descended from our oldest family. Her grandparents were Jacob
and Nancy Silver, first settlers and founders of our community. Jacob's father
and Lizzie's great grandfather was George Silver, whose father came from Germany
around 1750 and settled in a Northern state. George an only child, was born in
1760 and became the founder of the Silver family as we know it today. When the
Revolutionary War broke out George's father who by then was an old man, fought
on the side of freedom for two years, when George a strippling of eighteen, volunteered
in his place and served under Washington until the war's close four years later.
By that time his parents were both dead and George came South without rebuilding
his home and settled in the pioneer town of Morganton NC, where he married a
woman by the name of Griffith and raised a large family. (Note; George Silver's
war record states he met and married in Maryland.) From there his son Jacob and
Nancy Reed, Jacob's second wife, his first being dead, and his small son by his
first marriage, pushed over the mountains into what is now our community and
became its first settlers and founders. Their closest neighbors were the Wilsons
on Bear Creek and the Daytons in the Dayton Bend and the vast region between
them was unexplored and unsettled wilderness. Lizzie, who never married, lived
all her life in the house Jacob and Nancy built about 1809 which is now the oldest
ancestral home of the Silver family as well as the oldest and most venerable
in our community and perhaps in the country. Soon after their arrival, Jacob's
father, George, by then a widower followed with his remaining children and all
of them moved into the house with Jacob. Not many years later George died with
Typhoid Fever and was buried on the top of the hill above the house where a family
graveyard had already been started. Containing, among others the grave enclosing
the ashes of the ill-fated Charles who was murdered and burned by his wife, Frankie
Stewart. Thus while he was not the first, george is never the less the oldest
born person buried in our cemetery, and the only revolutionary war vereran and
former subject of England. From him all the Silver's of the Toe River Valley
and many others from other parts of our country are descended, as well as many
who have other family names. Perhaps more people of this region trace back to
his family than to any other man and if all his descendents were to gather at
his grave to honor him, their first known ancestor it would be an immense tfeather.gifong
from many places and with many names.
From Jacob and Nancy, who were buried near George, this ancestral home passed
to their son David, Lizzies father, with whom she lived until his death August
26, 1911. Tfeather.gifice married, David's first wife was Elizabeth Baker, his second
was Sarah Ledford and his third the widow Rosanna Gouge. Lizzie's mother, his
second wife, was known familiarily as Sally. She died while Lizzie was a girl
and she and David who followed her later were buried side by side near Jacob
and Nancy. From David the ancestral home passed to his son Will, with whom Lizzie
lived until her death.
The above was penned by an unknown relative.