Source: T.B. Helm, History of Wabash County, Indiana (1884), p. 297.

JOHN A. ROYER, tile manufacturer, North Manchester, was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, December 9, 1848; his father, Samuel Royer, was born in Ohio; his mother, whose maiden name was Mary A. Hinsey, was born in Pennsylvania. The father died in 1877; the mother still survives, and is living with her son, John A. The family came to Wabash County, Ind., in 1854. The father was a stone-mason, and by hard work accumulated a comfortable estate, having 160 acres of land, well improved, at the time of his death. He had a family of ten children, nine of whom are now living. Grandfather Royer was under Gen. Wayne in the war of 1812, and lived to the remarkable age of one hundred years. John A., the subject of this sketch, was reared a farmer, and has always followed that vocation, though he has also worked as a stone-mason and carpenter. He now conducts the home farm, in connection with the manufacture of tile, having erected a superior tile factory in 1866, and a saw mill he began running in the spring of 1881.