From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, pages 665-666.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


JACOB NESSLY

In the year 1785 Jacob Nessly and wife built them a home in what is 
now Hancock county, W. Va.  Their family had been in America fifty 
years or more.  Attempts to trace their ancestry have not proved 
definitely the time the family came to this country, but the best 
information seems to make it reasonably certain that the progenitors 
of the American branch of the family emigrated from the Swiss 
Lorraine district on the borders of France, about the year 1730.  
Jacob Nessly had been married about the year 1722, to Elizabeth 
Graff, he being at that time past twenty-one and she past seventeen 
years of age.  She was a descendant of Hans Graff, who fled from the 
persecutions of the Mennonites in Switzerland, and settled on Graff's 
run, in West Earl township, Lancaster Co., Penn., in 1717.  He was 
the first settler of the township, and it was named in his honor, 
Earl being an English equivalent of Graff.  The children of Jacob 
Nessly and wife were nine in number: Barbara, Daniel, who died in 
infancy, Jacob, Judith, John, Lucy, Elizabeth, Alice and Nancy, who 
died in girlhood. The parents died, Mr. Nessly November 3, 1832, and 
his wife August 6, 1829.  Their daughter, Elizabeth, was married in 
1805 to Christian Brenneman, of Lancaster county, Penn., and eight 
children were born to them: Nancy, Jacob, Judith, Eliza, Julia, 
Richard, Barbara and Cyrus.  Nancy, one of these was married in 
January, 1827, to Thomas J. Hewitt, by whom she had nine children: 
Mary Amanda, William, Elizabeth, Harriet, Julia, Heaton, Addison, 
Emor, and Cyrus, all of whom are living except Heaton, who died in 
1854.  Mary Amanda, who was born in 1827, was married in 1850, to 
George W. Stewart.  He was born near Philadelphia, January 19, 1825, 
and was the son of James Stewart, of Scotch descent, who came to Ohio 
when his son was five years of age.  His mother was Olive Martin, of 
Quaker parentage, whose grandmother was a relative of Bayard Taylor.  
Mr. Stewart worked upon the farm until he was twenty-one years of 
age, when he went to Wellsville and was engaged in the wholesale 
grocery trade for three years.  In 1848 he went into the dry goods 
business at the mouth of Yellow creek, Ohio, where he remained for 
several years.  In the spring of i866 he removed to New Cumberland 
and continued in the dry goods business with much success.  He passed 
away August 9, 1882.  He was one of the most enterprising and valued 
citizens of the county, and his many worthy characteristics will long 
be remembered.  To Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were born seven children: 
Edgar, who died in 1852; Edmund D., Charles S., George W., Arthur H., 
William L., and Mary A.  In 1885 the descendants of the Nessly family 
held a centennial celebration of the settlement in Hancock county, 
and 500 were in attendance. 


(Linda Fluharty)