Background
Ayres was born in Truro, Massachusetts (Cape Cod).
Ayres was born in Truro, Massachusetts (Cape Cod).
His father was the fifth generation of settlers to the New World, as a direct descendant of Captain John Ayres and Susanna Symonds of Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1648. Ayres, was one of the pioneer residents of Griggsville, Illinois moving there in 1821. There son Marshall Ayres, Junior. and future oil industrialist, was born on February 20, 1839.
