Peter A. Demorest Family Collection

This collection was created by the family of Peter Demorest, who, with his wife, Hannah Stewart Demorest, was the first Demorest to settle in Casper, Wyoming. Peter’s Demorest ancestors were residents of Richmond County, New York leading up to and during the Revolutionary War period. As loyalists to the British crown, the family lost its land in the wake of the founding of the United States of America. The family began moving West, first to New Jersey, where Peter Austin Demorest was born in 1835. In 1863, when Peter Austin Demorest married Hannah Stewart, he was living in Nebraska. By 1889, Peter and Hannah were living in Casper, Wyoming, which had incorporated as a town in the spring of that year, as it lay along new rail lines. By July, 1889, Peter was among four men elected to the first Casper city council.

Casper’s early days were defined by ranching, but by the close of the 19th century oil had become big business as well. In 1919, Peter Austin Demorest died. He and Hannah had seven children, sons George (b. 1864), John (b. 1868), William (b. 1871), Samuel (b. 1874), Charles (b. 1878), Francis (b. 1881), as well as daughter Grace (b. 1883), whose descendants form the Smith branch is represented in this collection. The earliest photographs in the collection are largely posed portraits, and reflect the family’s life once it had already settled in the West.