The son of Jacob & Sarah (Kupp) Lyme, he married Mary Jane Strohm and fathered John C. (b. 08/28/59), William J. (b. 0/27/62), Minnie M. (b. 12/26/64 - married Lewis H. Tyson), Lydia Jane (b. 01/28/67 - married Clayton C. Forney), Irvin or Irwin H. (b. 10/06/69), Laura B (b. 08/23/76 - married a Mountz), Edward (b. 05/09/74), and Victor D. (b. 07/29/80). In 1860, he was a mason living with his family in West Hanover Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

A Civil War veteran, he enlisted at the stated age of twenty-five in Harrisburg August 18, 1864, mustered into federal service that day as a corporal with Co. C, 201st Pennsylvania Infantry, and honorably discharged with his company June 23, 1865. Typical of the times, his obituary in the Harrisburg Telegraph offers a false account of his Civil War service, claiming he had been "one of the first to enlist . . . in 1861" and that he "served two years in Civil War." There is no evidence Lyme ever served in any regiment other than the 201st Pennsylvania, which did not come into existence until September 1864. He is in the company register as "Line" but applied for his disability pension as "Lime."

He moved to Harrisburg ca. 1880 and on July 1, 1889, applied for a disability pension based on his military service, which he received. Despondent and in pain from a lengthy illness, he had one occasion attempted to shoot himself, but an acquaintance knocked the pistol from his hand. When he then tried to jump into the canal to drown himself, the same acquaintance again prevented it. On the final day of his life, John was alone outside his Harrisburg home with no one to stop him when he placed a .32 revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He had been a member of Hartranft Post No. 58, G.A.R.

September 29 is also reported as his birthday. He likewise has various birth years reported, but his stated age at enlistment is supported by every census in which he appears.

bio info courtesy of Dennis Brandt