officers of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. He was a son of Joseph and Sarah (Jamison) Urann, was born in Boston, February 3, 1723,
and married April 3, 1751, Mary Sloper, of
Boston. They had seven sons and six daugh-
ters. Their son Joseph, born June 11, 1753,
married Hannah Emmes, of Boston, July 28,
1776, and was the father of Mary Llrann, bap-
tized December 14, 1777, who wJis married
February 16, 1795, in the Brattle Street Church,
by the Rev. Peter Thatcher, to John Spencer,
of Boston. Mr. Spencer died in 1816; and in
1818 his widow became the second wife of
David Ring, Sr., of Bangor, Me., whose son,
David, Jr., married, as above noted, her daugh-
ter, Mary Spencer. Another of Mrs. Elliot's
ancestors was Jonas Clark, " the famous Ruling
Elder of the Cambridge Church."
After the death of her mother Emily J. Ring became, by act of Legislature, the adopted daughter of the Hon. Nathaniel F. Hyer, Judge of Probate, one of the founders of the State of Wisconsin and a member of its Constitutional Convention. An extended sketch of Mr. Hyer is contained in the " Memorial Record of the Fathers of Wisconsin," published in ISSO. He was a native of Vermont. Receiving a collegiate education, he was admitted to the bar and became a prosperous lawyer. In 1836, his health failing, lie emigrated to the wilds of Wisconsin, locating in Milwaukee. Soon afterward we find him engaged in various exploring expeditions, in one of which, after following an Indian trail for forty miles, he came upon curious and extensive prehistoric mounds and works, which he believed to be the site of an ancient Aztec settlement. Here Mr. Hyer founded a new town which he called Aztalan, which name it still bears. In January, 1837, he surveyed and mapped the.se old ruins, publishing an interesting description of them, which was copied into Silliman's and other journals. They also became the subject of an interesting correspondence between Mr. Hyer and the Hon. Edward Everett. Mr. Hyer's discovery and accoimt of these remains is mentioned in the elaborate work of the Smith- sonian Institution on Wisconsin Antiquities as being "the foimdation of all subsecpient plans and descriptions."
In 1849 Mr. Hyer, by ill health compelled to seek a wanner climate, removed with his family to St. Louis, where for several years he was County Surveyor. In 1856 they went to San Antonio, Tex., and in May, 1857, crossed the Texas prairies in Mexican ox-carts to the coast, where they embarked for New Orleans and thence went to Pensacola, Fla. In September, 1857, they removetl to Louisiana. Mr. Hyer was there engaged in surveys of the levees and of swamp lancls, the family in the meantime living sometimes in New Orleans, sometimes in the country. The opening of the Civil War found them in their country home, cut off from New Orleans, and surrounded by Con- federate troops and sympathizers, among whom Mr. Hyer, being an outspoken Unionist, was a marked man. His knowledge of the country made him a dangerous person for the Confederacy should he reach the Federal lines, and a plot was therefore laid to kill him; but, fore-warned and aided by personal friends among the Confederates, he escaped with his family by bribing the rebel guard. Secreted in the hold of a little schooner, they made their way safely across Lake Pontchartrain, reaching the Union lines at New Orleans in October, 1862.
Mr. Hyer was immediately appointed by General Butler upon his staff of assistant engineers, serving until the close of the war. He furnished many plans and a large amount of data concerning the roads, rivers, and topography of Louisiana, also other information of an important military character, to the Union army. After the war he was appointed Collector of United States land tax, later United States Register of Voters, and afterward Parish Treasurer and Surveyor. In 1877 he returned from Louisiana to Wisconsin, where he died September 12, 1885.
In 1840 Mr. Hyer married Frances Elizabeth, daughter of Caleb and Nancy (Ruggles) Clapp and a descendant of the old Boston and Roxbury Clapp, Dorr, and Ruggles families. Mrs. Hyer was born in Vermont, her father having removed to that State and become an importer of merino sheep and a wool raiser and manufacturer. After his death his family migrated to Wisconsin. Mrs. Hyer was educated at Madam Seaton's Seminary. Much of her
