Paul Frederick August Kayser
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Paul Frederick August Kayser and Lucinda Wiseman-Kayser arrived in Torrance County in about 1890 when they established a homestead near Eastview.   August, as he was called, arrived in New Mexico in 1866 and lived initially in the Albuquerque area. Later, he lived five years in the Isleta Pueblo where, according to family tradition, he developed a written language for the Pueblo.
Lucinda had arrived in New Mexico from Manhattan, Kansas via the Santa Fe Trail in 1877. The diary she kept during the trip was recently published in Wagon Tracks--Journal of the Santa Fe Trail Association. She lived originally in La Joya, Socorro County with her first husband, Carl Trieloff, but she was widowed about two years after arriving in New Mexico and appealed to well-known merchant and banker John Becker of Belen because she needed help with the wagon yard business she operated in La Joya. Becker introduced her to Kayser and eventually they married and moved to Torrance County. 
August and Lucinda both taught in schools in the villages on the eastern slopes of the Manzano Mountains in both English and Spanish. He operated a sawmill on his homestead in Eastview. They had a number of children many of whose descendents currently live in Mountainair. Their oldest son, also named Paul Frederick August and known as August, worked as a sheep herder as a youth but became employed by the AT&SF Railway as a teamster during the construction of the Belen cutoff. The younger August continued to work for the Santa Fe RR as a locomotive fireman after construction was completed. He was promoted to engineer but failed to pass the physical as a result of vision problems. He accepted a position as a laborer and soon became section foreman of that section of the railroad between Abo and Dripping Springs.
He and his family lived in Scholle from about 1923 until about 1948 and the Railroad honored his work by creating the Kayser milepost. In 1948 Kayser moved to Estancia where he was foreman of the AT&SF branch that ran from Willard to Moriarity. He finally retired in 1962. He was married to Mary E. Howe who was born in La Cienega--near Eastview, in 1887. Frank Howe, Mary's father, had a homestead near new Abo. The Kaysers had five surviving children. One of their sons George Harding Kayser returned to Mountainair after serving in WWII and working for the U.S. Navy until his retirement. Harding became mayor of Mountainair and served in that position for several years. About 1980, he and some partners purchased the Shaffer Hotel in Mountainair. It had been abandoned since the WWII era. Harding worked on the physical plant of the hotel and reopened it as a bed and breakfast. He was involved in the project until his death in 1996. Submitted by the son of Frances Adele Kayser, the third child of the younger August Kayser and Mary Howe, Frank Wimberly, Ph.D. 
©2005