Joseph
K Byler
REV.
JOSEPH K. BYLER, Amish preacher and a recognized leader among his
people, resides on a farm in Neshannock Township. He was born in Mifflin
County, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1847, and is a son of Solomon and Annie
(Kauffman) Byler.
Solomon Byler, a son of Christian Byler,
was born in Mifflin County Pennsylvania, and lived to the age of
seventy-eight years. He moved from his native county to Wilmington
Township, Lawrence County, about the year 1849, and purchased a farm on
which he lived several years, then moved to Pulaski Township. He married
Annie Kauffman, a daughter of Isaac Kauffman of Juniata County,
Pennsylvania, and they became parents of eight children, of whom the
following grew to maturity: Moses, of Wilmington Township; Joseph K.;
Christian, of near Pittsburg; Isaac, of Pulaski Township, and Annie,
wife of Moses Wendgard, of Geauga County, Ohio. Religiously the parents
of this family belonged to the Amish Church.
Rev. Joseph K. Byler was reared and
educated in Pulaski Township, whither his parents had moved when he was
young. He helped farm the home place, on which he lived until the second
year after his marriage, and then rented a farm in Mahoning Township.
About the year 1888 he purchased his present farm of fifty acres in
Neshannock Township, where he carries on general farming and stock
raising. He has a fine orchard of three acres and a well improved farm
throughout. A man of industry and frugal habits, he earned a competency
and is considered one of the substantial and reliable residents of the
township. Although a man of deep learning, his educational advantages in
his youth were limited and his education was acquired only through
individual research and long years of study. A man of the highest
Christian type, with all the qualifications of a leader, he has been a
power for the accomplishment of good, not alone in the congregation over
which he has guidance, but throughout the community. His transactions in
the field of business have always been characterized by the strictest
honesty and fairness, and there is none more universally accorded the
respect and confidence of the people than he. He is a man of wide
acquaintance. The Amish live close to nature, following the simple life
of the early Christians, are a moral and law-abiding people and elevate
the moral tone of any community in which they are found. Were more to
follow their precepts, their unpretentious manner of living, and adopt
their frugal and industrious habits there would be little use for the
costly penal institutions and alms-houses so necessary in our country.
Rev. Byler was united in marriage with
Sarah Yoder, a daughter of Benjamin Yoder, of Mifflin County, and they
have had four children to grow up, namely: Betsy, wife of David H.
Byler, of Wilmington; Lydia, wife of Isaac Yoder, of Wilmington; Sarah,
wife of John L. Yoder, of Neshannock Township, and Eli, who is living on
the home place. In politics Mr. Byler is a Republican, but reserves the
right to cast his ballot for the man best suited for the office.
Twentieth
Century History of New Castle and Lawrence County, 1908, pages 966-967