Peter Oatyar, the originator of the family in Virginia, went by many spellings of his surname. Oatyer, Oatyar, Oatyear, Eytcher, Etcher, and Atcher are some that show up in Loudoun County records. His signature appeared in a 1776 petition for ending the established church (Anglican) in Virginia and, at least in 1776, he spelled his name Oatyar1.
His oldest child, John, appeared in some records
as John Oatyer but John's son Peter appeared as Peter Etcher as did all his descendants. Peter Oatyar's
other four children were daughters who married and did not carry on the surname. However, one
reference2 to him stated "My father, George Grimes, being pretty well grown, did not
accompany the family to Ohio. After leaving his mother's home, he found a friend in the person of
one Peter Atcher, a wealthy German farmer and stock raiser, who was noted particularly as a breeder
of fine horses. He remained with him during his minority after which he found his way up into
Loudoun County, and lived among the Friends or Quakers. This was called the Goose Creek Settlement
of Friends, and the meeting house is about six miles west of Leesburg, the county seat of
Loudoun County." It is likely that Peter was of Germanic origin.
Peter first appeared in the
tithables list for Cameron Parish, Loudoun County in July 1775 and he continued to appear, though
not every year, in the tithables and personal property tax lists until his death in 1834.
Sources:
"Account Book 1772-1774", John Mehelm and Sidney Berry, 1772, Manuscript Group 847;
New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, 210.
Peter Oatyar will (23 Feb 1829), Will Book V:
John Oatyer is mentioned in Peter's will as having pre-deceased Peter before 23 Feb 1829,
Loudoun County Clerk of Circuit Court, Leesburg, Virginia.
"File Research Report: Oettgen of
Hunterdon County, New Jersey", Robert L Stoy Jr, 2 Nov 2008; R Stoy Genealogy Binders - Oatyar,
Aliso Viejo, California.
Henry Race, "Parish Register of The German Reformed Church of Alexandria, Hunterdon County,
New Jersey, 1763-1802," The Jerseyman 3 (June 1897): 44.
Hunterdon County, New Jersey, Church Records of the German Reformed Church, of Alexandria Township,
Hunterdon County, New Jersey: 19; Film No. 441,466, item 2, Family History Library, Salt Lake City,
Utah. The baptism register was abstracted by John Woolf Jordan (1840-1921) and was filmed 25 Aug 1965
by the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania; the manuscript was not located at HSP during a search Nov 2008.
Peter Oatyar's wife has been another mystery but the Hunterdon County documents show that her name was Anna Maria Becher, which agrees with the one Loudoun County document that states her name as Mary Baker. In Virginia documents, Peter's wife's given name was Mary based on a bill of sale for land in Shenandoah County3. He had been granted a 247-acre tract from Thomas Lord Fairfax 31 Aug 1779 but seems to have never used the property, which he sold in 1802 for 300 pounds to Abraham Barb. Mary was listed in the sale document. Again, more research is needed on the family in Hunterdon County.
Peter was very well-off for his time - at his death he owned about 3000 acres in the Broad Run area (see sidebar map) and it took about 20 years for his estate to be resolved because of the many children and grandchildren that had scattered beyond Virginia. His daughters married men who migrated from Virginia to Ohio and points west but his grandson, Peter Etcher, lived and died in Loudoun County and his descendants remained, for the most part, in Loudoun and in Washington DC, where some still reside.
Because two of Peter's daughters married Caylor brothers, their migration paths are the same as those shown on the Caylor migration map. For the rest of the Oatyar/Etcher family, many remained in the Northern Virginia, Greater Washington, area with many descendants still living there. Others moved to Missouri (Howell and Oregon counties), others to Kansas (Bourbon County), Nebraska (Douglas and Nuckolls counties), Illinois (Douglas County), Iowa (Des Moines County) and Montana (Carbon, Gallatin and Silver Bow counties).
1. Library of Congress, "October 16, 1776, Miscellaneous, Ten-thousand name petition by Dissenters from
whole state, for ending established church, and for institution of religious equality," digital image,
American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html : 30 Jul 2008), entry for Peter Oatyar,
image 221 of 250, column one, middle of page; original at Library of Virginia.
2. Mary A Grimes, The Grimes Family (1946), 3-4; digital images, Ancestry.com
(http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Jun 2006).
3. Shenandoah County, Virginia, Deed Book, Vol N:118-9, Peter Oatyer entry, 3 May 1802; FHL microfilm
33,893.