Information Sheet

 

 

R         Giesler family.

580                  Giesler and Spurgeon families, papers, 1865-1912.

                                    One folder, photocopies.

 

 

 

This collection consists of correspondence and miscellaneous papers from the Giesler and Spurgeon families from the High Gate community in Maries County, Missouri.  Much of the cor­re­spondence is addressed to John A. Giesler, concerning family, friends and events in Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri.  The correspondents include Sarah Ellen Kinkeade, Uriah J. Loop, Nathan Peters, and James A. Riley.

 

The Giesler family is of Germanic origin.  The name is variously spelled Geisler and Gea­sler.  Several related branches of the family are thought to have come to Missouri via Tennessee about the time of the Civil War, settling in the High Gate community of Maries County.  John A. Giesler (1830-1918), was a Union veteran.  His son, John A. Giesler, Jr. (1863-1915), was the re­cipient of much of the correspondence in the collection of family papers.  The Gieslers are re­lated to the Spurgeon family, also of Maries County, through the marriage of Eldora F. Giesler and James N. Spurgeon.  Additional information on both families can be found in Glenis L. Southard, The First One Hundred Twenty-Five Years, 1850-1975: A Personal History of High Gate, Mis­souri  (Rolla, Mo.: Bixler Printing Co., 1990).

 

The collection is a typical family assemblage of correspondence and miscellaneous papers, with genealogical information taken from a family Bible.  Many of the letters are addressed to John A. Giesler, Jr., including a letter from an uncle, a Union army veteran in Indiana, and those from young friends who left Maries County for work in Black Rock, Arkansas, Galena, Kansas, and Medora, Missouri.  There are also minutes of a Sunday School class of the High Gate Baptist Church, receipts for dues in the High Gate Agricultural Wheel and the Farmers’ and Laborers’ Union of Missouri.  From the Spurgeon (also spelled “Spurgin”) family, there is a wedding invi­ta­tion and correspondence concerning a widow’s pension based on the military service of James Spurgin during the Civil War.

 

 

 

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