Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1898 — A Jasper County Boy in Manila. [ARTICLE]

A Jasper County Boy in Manila.

The Republican’s previous statement that so far as known Leonard Jessup was the first Jasper county boy to be sent tothe Philippines as one of Uncle Sam’s army, has brought out information of still another brave lad from old Jasper who has been sent to that far off but no longer foreign shore. Charles W. Byers, who went to Idaho in 1891, and was a cow boy and became a member of the Idaho militia enlisted in the first Idaho regiment at the outbreak of the Spanish war, and went with his regiment to Manila, His father, who was a soldier in the civil war, died at Wheatfield a year or two ago but his mother and brothers still reside there. The last letter they received from Charley was written just as his regiment w-as embarking at San Francisco. The date of his leaving the latter place we did not learn, but if we mistake not. it was long enough ago for the regiment to have arrived in time to take part in the capture of Manila. Although the Byers family now live at Wheatfield, they formerly and for a long time lived in Gillam township, and that same township strangely enough, was also the former home of Leonard Jessup, the other Jasper county representative in the Philippines.