Mary (Bailey) Lathrop's maternal grandmother was Mary Richey. Mary's mother was Cyrena (Nease) Richey. The Nease family has a rich history in America beginning with Cyrena's great-grandfather William Henry Nease who first came to America in the mid 1700's. Part of this history includes the Zirkle family who arrived in America in the early 18th century. Both families were from the Rhine Valley in Germany.
William Henry Nease settled in an area of Pennsylvania called Georgetown. It's not exactly clear where this area is located. One source suggests it was outside of Pittsburgh. Another says it was in the heart of present day Philadelphia. Given the wave of German immigrants in the early 1700s, especially those from the Rhine Valley region known as "The Palatinate", the latter seems more likely.
William married Anna Brock, and they had two sons, William Jr. and Henry. Having previously bought land, he divided it equally between his sons. William Jr. and his family remained in the area, but Henry leased his land and moved with a group of people to the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia in what was then Dunmore County, today Shenandoah County. In 1791, Henry married Anna Mary Zirkle.
The Zirkle family (sometimes seen as Zerckel, Zirckle, or Circle), also from the Rhine Valley in Germany, came to Pennsylvania in the 1720's. In this line, the immigrant was Heinrich Zirkle along with his wife Eva, their twin children Johann Ludwig/Lodowick and Anna Maria, and Ludwig's wife Maria Eva (nee Bear).
Ludwig died in 1746, and Maria moved with their children to a place called "The Forest" in Dunmore/Shenandoah County, Virginia where the town of Forestville now stands. It was there that son Michael Zirkle married Catherine Sehler in 1762.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, Michael served in the Dunmore County Militia under Captain Jacob Holeman. This group eventually joined the 8th Virginia Regiment which served through the war, including serving with General Washington at Brandywine and Valley Forge.
Michael and Catherine had fifteen children in all. Anna Mary, known as "Mary", was their 6th child, born in 1770. She married Henry Nease in 1791.
In 1797, Henry and Mary Nease moved their family through Pennsylvania and down the Ohio River to a place in Ohio that came to be called Graham Station, part of Meigs County. It was renamed Racine in 1848. The area immediately across the river in Mason County, West Virginia was also called Graham Station. This is where Henry bought land, built a home, and remained the rest of his life.
Their 2nd child Michael stayed on the Ohio side of the river. In 1815, he married Catherine Wolfe. Their first home was on the edge of what is now Syracuse, Ohio. In 1831, they built a larger home in the same area which eventually came to be called the Nease Settlement, which is still recognized today.
Michael and Catherine had 12 children. Cyrena was the 2nd youngest, born in 1836. In 1856, she married Hugh Davis Richey, and they had three children: Mary (our ancestor), Arthur, and William.
This brief history is compiled from several sources, one of which is a fantastic website that includes a detailed family history as told by Harriet (Nease) Jewett, Cyrena's younger sister: http://meigscofamhist.net/FAMILY_HISTORY.php.
Sayre Family: another 100 years, Volume 2, by Ralph Sayre
History of the Roush Family in America: From Its Founding by John Adam Rausch in 1736 to the Present Time, Volume 4, by Walden F. Roush
Zirkle Family History, 1963