USA > Indiana > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong counties, Pennsylvania > Part 18
USA > Pennsylvania > Armstrong County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong counties, Pennsylvania > Part 18
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Edwin G. Orr was reared on the home farm, attended common and select schools and com- menced life for himself as a teacher in the district schools. In two years he quit teaching and embarked (1885) with his brother, James L. Orr, in the lumber business near Indiana, which they still pursue and in which they em- ploy nearly fifty men. In October, 1889, he and his brother purchased the store of J. M. Guthrie and engaged in their present general mercantile business. Into merchandising Mr. Orr threw his whole energy, and his success has been commensurate to his well-directed efforts. He has continually added to his stock of goods in quantity, quality and variety, has branched out in the lines of articles which he handles and is constantly adding to the number of his
patrons. This firm deals in dry-goods, clothing, hats and caps, and boots and shoes, handles hardware, groceries and flour and makes a specialty of ladies' and gentlemen's furnishing goods. Their establishment, popularly known as the "Farmers' Exchange," is on the corner of Church and St. Clair streets. It is complete throughout its many departments, neat and tasty in all of its arrangements and has ample floor space for the large stock of goods which is constantly kept on hand to supply the many wants of numerous purchasers.
Edwin G. Orr has always believed in im- proving present opportunities and in never being idle. In whatever he does he works with a will and for a purpose, and as a natural conse- quence success has crowned his efforts. With but little capital to commence the battle of life, he has by good judgment, quick perception, honest dealing and earnest and persistent labor won success and become prominent among the business men of the county. He is a republican in politics. He is a member of William Penn Council, No. 305, Royal Arcanum ; Im- proved order of Heptasophs Lodge, No. 280; Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and the Evangelical Lutheran church. Live, active and energetic, the possibilities of the future open to him a wide field for a successful business career.
REV. WILLIAM S. OWENS, D.D., a popular and eloquent divine and the effi- cient general superintendent of the Home Mis- sions of the United Presbyterian church of the United States, is a son of Robert and Sarah (Steele) Owens, and was born in county Down, Ireland, July 25, 1842. His parents were both natives of county Down and members of the Presbyterian church. They came to this State in 1844. The father, Robert Owens, died in Allegheny, in the fall of 1848, when only in the twenty-eighth year of his age. His wife
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survived him but nine years, passing away in 1857, aged thirty-eight years. Both were mem- bers of what is now the First United Presby- terian church of Allegheny. They were the parents of four children, of whom two were: Rev. William S. and Elizabeth, now the wife of W. K. Hamilton.
William S. Owens was brought by his parents to Allegheny city, where the death of his father and mother left him, although but a child, to make his own way in the world. He received his early education iu the public schools and from the age of twelve to that of nineteen years he was engaged in making his own living at such work as a boy could procure at that time. He obtained his academic education in the Western University of Peunsylvania at Pitts- burg and in 1861 entered Westminster College, at New Wilmington, Pa., from which institution of learning he was graduated in June, 1866. He then prepared for the work of the ministry by taking the full course of the Allegheny Theo- logical seminary of the United Presbyterian church, from which he was graduated in the spring of 1869. Immediately after graduation he was called and settled as minister of the North United Presbyterian church in Philadel- phia. He served that church until August, 1871, when he resigned to become pastor of the United Presbyterian church at Indiana. After labor- ing there six years, he removed (in July, 1877) to Steubenville, Ohio, and assumed charge of the United Presbyterian church of that place. His pastorate in that field of labor lasted for ten years and was pleasant and useful. His standing as a minister and as a public-spirited citizen was very high in that community. In June, 1886, he was elected by the General As- sembly of the United Presbyterian church as the general secretary of its Board of Home Mis- sions. One year later he was requested to resign his pastoral charge and devote his entire time to superintending the home mission work. In order to discharge the duties of this wide and
important field of labor which was placed under his charge, he resigned the pastorate of the Steubenville United Presbyterian church and returned to his former home at Indiana, in the spring of 1887. Since then he has been actively engaged in traveling in various parts of the United States in the interests of home mission work and in the developement of the church with which he is connected. In 1888, Dr. Owens was elected chairman of the coustitutional amendment county committee, and so well or- ganized and directed the campaign that Indiana rolled up out of a total poll of seven thousand votes the surprising majority of two thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine in favor of the prohibitory amendment to the State constitu- tion.
During the late war he was not lacking in devotion to the cause of the Union, and in Au- gust, 1862, enlisted as a soldier in Co. E, 123d regiment, Pa. Vols. He was true to every duty of a soldier aud was present at the hard-fought battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chan- cellorsville. At the expiration of his nine months' term of service, he was employed as a clerk in the office of the paymaster-general at Washingtou City, where he remained until near the close of the war.
August 26, 1869, he married Elmira Mc- Caughey, who was a classmate of his at West- minster college and is a daughter of Thomas McCaughey, of Fredericksburg, Wayne county, Ohio. They have seven children, three sons and four daughters: Sarah, Robert E., Eliza- beth, Charles Truesdale, Margaretta, William Brownlee and Helen.
Rev. W. S. Owens, D.D., possesses that rare but happy faculty which so many men of genius and ability lack-that. of throwing his whole soul and energy into his work. His has been a life of activity and usefulness in every field in which he has been called to labor, and they have not been few in number nor easy in the work they presented. He is probably the most widely
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known minister of his church in the United States in consequence of his extended mission travels, liis many able sermons and numerous eloquent addresses. While pleasing and popular as a speaker, yet he is not lacking in earnestness or logic. Genial, courteous and self-possessed upon all occasions, yet sufficiently dignified and de- cidedly stern enough when necessity requires to rebuke severely and with effect, vice or folly in whatever place appearing or in whatever guise presented. He is a republican in politics and has a fine residence with beautiful surroundings at Indiana. In personal appearance he is rather below medium height with an intelligent face and winning manners. In the matured prime of life he is but in the midst of a career of use- fulness and distinction.
TOHN L. PAUL. Among the business men of Indiana, none is better known than John Lochry Paul, who is prominent in the fire insurance business of that place. He is well-informed, courteous and obliging. He is a son of Robert A. and Mary (Cochran) Paul, and was born at Apollo, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, June 23, 1865. The Paul family came from county Antrim, Ireland, and located in Franklin county about 1750, but soon removed to Westmoreland county. Sam- uel Paul (great-grandfather) was a native of Westmoreland county, was for many years justice of the peace in Washington township, that county, and lived to a good old age. His son, John Paul (grandfather), was born in 1803. He has been all his life a prosperous farmer of Bell and Washington townships, in Westmoreland county, and has always coni- manded the respect of his neighbors. He was one of the commissioners appointed to take the vote of the soldiers during the rebellion. He retired from active life some twenty-five years ago and has since resided at Paulton (a town named after him), opposite Apollo. He is now
in his eighty-eighth year and quite active. He is a consistent member of the Presbyterian church. His wife, whose maiden name was Thompson, died January, 1890, in the eighty- sixth year of her age. Her mother was a daughter of Col. Archibald Lochry, a famous Indian fighter. In July, 1781, Col. Lochry, then county lieutenant of Westmoreland county, commanded an expedition against the Indians, with a force of one hundred and twenty-five men. He was surprised by the In- diaus some nine miles below the Muskingum river, Ohio, at the mouth of a small stream which has since borne the name of Lochry's creek. Col. Lochry and forty-two of his men were killed while the remainder of the force
was captured and carried to Canada. Robert A. Paul (father) was born in Westmoreland county, and is Postmaster at Saltsburg, of which borough he has been a citizen for twenty-one years. He is engaged in mercan- tile pursuits and has lived in the Kiskiminetas Valley most of his life. He is one of the trustees of the Presbyterian church, is a promi- nent republican and has been sent as a delegate several times to the republican State convention. He married Mary Cochran, daughter of Judge M. Cochran, who was born in Armstrong county, in 1831, and is also a member of the Presbyterian church.
John L. Paul removed with his parents to Saltsburg, in 1869, and attended the public schools there, and afterward the Saltsburg academy. From 1880 to 1883 he acted as salesman for his father, who was dealing in farming implements, then opened a fire insur- ance office at Saltsburg, but removed to Indi- ana in February, 1884, as the prospects of suc- cess there seemed brighter. He and his father have a neat office at the corner of Sixth and Philadelphia streets, doing business under the firm name of R. A. Paul & Son. They have a large patronage, and represent the Fire associa- tion, the American Fire and the Franklin Fire
9
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BIOGRAPHIES OF
insurance companies of Philadelphia ; the Lib- erty of New York ; the Artisan of Pittsburgh ; the National and Teutonia of Alleglieny City and the Commercial, Union and Lancashire fire insurance companies of England.
In 1888 he married Jean Reynolds, daugh- ter of C. C. McLain (deceased), of Indiana. They have one child, a son, Charles Robert.
He is a republican and a charter member of Indiana Council, No. 260, Jr. O. U. A. M., and William Penn Council, No. 305, Royal Arcanum. He attends and contributes to the Presbyterian church, and is one of the straight- forward reliable men of Indiana.
EDWARD A. PENNINGTON. Among the business men of Indiana, none are more highly respected by the public than Ed- ward A. Pennington. An honest, reliable man is the general verdict of those who know him. He was born in Brownsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, April 11, 1855. He is a son of Allison Campbell and Martha (Faull) Penn- ington. Allison C. Pennington was born at Wellsburg, W. Va., December 19, 1827. When eighteen years old he went to Brownsville, where he learned the trade of jeweler, and followed that business all his life. In 1868 he moved from Brownsville to Rice's Landing, Pa., and in 1870 he removed to Greensboro', Greene county, where during the latter years of his life he held the office of justice of the peace. Soon after the beginning of the rebellion he enlisted (October 30, 1862) in Co. D, 168th regiment, Pa. Vols., and served 9 months. He was an ardent member of the Democratic party, a prominent member of the Baptist church, and a strong temperance mau. He married Martha Faull, who was born in Norfolk, Va., August 15, 1830. She is a member of a Bap- tist church of Allegheny city, in which she has made her home since the death of her hus- band, on September 6, 1881.
Edward A. Pennington lived the first eight years of his life in Brownsville, then went with his parents to Rice's Landing, Jefferson township, Greene county, where they remained two years, and removed to Greensboro', on the Monongahela river, when Edward was fifteen years of age. He attended the public schools, but the river proved too attractive, and at an early age he shipped as cabin boy on one of the steamers plying up and down the Monon- gahela. He retained this position some two years, when he went to learn the tailoring trade at Greensboro', with H. C. Horner, and after- ward, in 1872, finished his trade with Samuel Harbough, of Elizabeth, Allegheny coun- ty. In May, 1875, he went into partnership with T. P. Moffett, of Waynesburg, Greene county, in the merchant tailoring business at Elizabeth and at West Elizabeth, under the firm name of Moffett & Pennington, Mr. Penn- ington taking charge of the former house. On June 30, 1877, they dissolved partnership and Mr. Pennington established himself at Elizabeth, following his trade there until No- vember, 1878, when he removed to Indiana, where he has since carried on liis present busi- ness of merchant tailoring most successfully. He has fully illustrated the old adage that what you want well done you must do yourself. He is his own cutter, and has so personally man- aged all the minutiæ of his business that it has grown to be one of the most solid in that sec- tion of Pennsylvania.
On October 7, 1879, he married Louisa B. Kline, daughter of George B. Kline, of Indi- ana. To their union have been born four children : Fay Edward, Effie Louis, Earnest Bertolette and Clarence Allison.
He is a Republican in politics, and is a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church, and William Penn Council, No. 305, Royal Arcanum. He is also one of the managers of library hall. By dint of quiet, steady energy and persever- ance, he has raised himself from a poor cabin
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boy to the position in which he now stands-an honored, respected merchant.
.J OHN H. PIERCE, a member of the Indiana county bar, was born in Clearfield county, Pennsylvania, March 8, 1855, and is a son of James and Sarah A. (Harrold) Pierce. The Pierce family is of Scotch descent and was planted in this country at an early day in its Colonial history. One of its numerous descend- ants was William Pierce, the grandfather of John H. Pierce. He removed to Armstrong county, this State. His son, James Pierce (father), received a good education, and became a successful teacher of his native county. He died in 1864, at Rimersburg, Clarion county, Pa., where he had gone on a business trip. He was an active member of the Methodist Episco- pal church. His wife was Sarah A. Harrold, who still survives him. She is a native of Columbiana county, Ohio, from which her par- ents removed when she was small, and settled first near Elderton, Pa., but in a few years located in Jefferson county, near Punxsutawney, where they resided as long as they lived. After her husband's death Mrs. Pierce moved to near Elderton, Armstrong county, where she now resides. She is in the sixty-third year of her age, and has been a member of the M. E. church for many years.
John H. Pierce is the eldest of a family of five children, was reared principally near Elder- ton and received his early education in the com- mon schools. He graduated at the Indiana State Normal school of Pennsylvania, in the class of 1881. He taught in the commnon schools from 1875 until the winter of 1883. He commenced the study of law with Hon. Silas M. Clark, who was shortly afterwards elected to the Supreme Bench of the State. He next prosecuted his legal studies with Col. Daniel S. Porter, until the death of the latter, when he completed the prescribed course of
reading with the law-firm of Jack & Taylor, of Indiana, and was admitted to the Indiana county bar in the fall of 1885. Since then he has been engaged in the practice of his profes- sion. He is a member of the Methodist Epis- copal church of Indiana. He is a republican in politics, lias been serving for several years as secretary of the Indiana County Agricultural society and is a safe and prudent lawyer.
On September 5th, 1883, John H. Pierce united in marriage with Josie Moore, daughter of John and Eliza Moore, of Whitesburg, Armstrong county, Pa. Their union has been blessed with two children, both sons : John M. and William E.
JONATHAN ROW, who ably edited at dif-
ferent times during his lifetime three English and two German newspapers in West- moreland, Somerset aud Indiana counties, this State, was one of the founders of the Republi- can party in western Pennsylvania. His dis- tinguished career as an editor and his valuable services as the earliest historian of Indiana county, require that space be allotted on these pages for his life-record. Jonathan Row was born four miles north of Greensburg, Westmore- land county, Pennsylvania, June 2, 1802, and was the fifth of six sons born unto Andrew and Elizabeth (Heintzelman) Row. The Rows are of German extraction and were among the early settlers in the vicinity of New York city. One of their descendants was Andrew Row (father), who was born in Northumberland and after- wards removed to Westmoreland county, Pa., where he died. He was thrice married and his second wife was Elizabeth Heintzelman, a daughter of George Heintzelman, who was a native of Germany and settled in Northampton county, Pa., where he reared a family of four sons and two daughters, and one of these sons was the grandfather of Major General Samuel P. Heintzelman. Andrew and Elizabetlı
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BIOGRAPHIES OF
(Heintzelman) Row were the parents of ten children : six sons and four danghters. Jonathan Row was reared in a day of limited educational advantages and received only one term of three months in a subscription school in which he learned to read. He learned the trade of brick- layer, which he followed for several years, was then engaged in the mercantile business at Adamsburg, in his native county, and in 1836 was appointed register and recorder of West- moreland county, Pa. He was reappointed in 1839 and served a second term. In 1838 he entered upon his great life-work of journalism in western Pennsylvania, by establishing a Ger- man paper in Greensburg, Pa., which was known as the Republikaner, and then became the Sentinel. In 1842 he disposed of the latter paper and purchased the Herald (English) and Republican (German) newspapers of Somerset county, Pa., which he edited until 1850. In 1847 he was elected treasurer of Somerset county, and three years later a stroke of paral- ysis prevented his appointment, by President Taylor, as consul to Hamburg, Germany. Four years later, having recovered from his paralytic stroke (1852) he purchased the Indiana Regis- ter, entered into the whig cause with his old time vigor, and after the defeat of Winfield Scott had sounded the death-knell of the whig party, Jonathan Row continued earnest and zealous in that opposition to democracy that eventually crystallized into republicanism. In the for- mation, growth and progress of the Republican party in Indiana county, he was a potent factor and an indefatigable worker. A second stroke of paralysis in 1858 finally incapacitated him from work, and the next year he retired from business and left the control of his paper to his sons, George, Amos and Augustus Row. While prominent and conspicuous in political af- fairs, yet in another field he deserves great credit for the large amount of historical matter, covering a wide range of adventure and experi- ence by the early settlers of western Pennsyl-
vania, and the formation and development of Indiana county, which he secured and saved from oblivion by publication in his several news- papers. In 1831, and again some years later, he was afflicted with cataract of both eyes and had two operations performed for the relief of that trouble.
He was married in 1821 to Maria C. Miniam, who is a member of the Lutheran church and was born in 1801. They reared to manhood and womanhood a family of eleven children : Samuel J .; Martha, relict of Rev. W. S. Emery, late of Frenchtown, N. J., deceased ; E. Eliza- beth, who was intermarried with J. H. Benford, late of Johnstown, Pa., deceased (Mrs. Benford was the proprietress of the ill-fated "Hulbert House" of Johnstown, which was swept away by the terrible flood of May 31, 1889, and she and one son and two daughters perished in the wreck); Catherine, relict of H. B. Woods, a lawyer late of Reading, Pa., deceased; Simon B .; Jane Mary, wife of Dr. W. H. McCormick, of Cum- berland, Md .; George; Amos; Augustus; Her- man, who died in 1880; and Charles Henry. One other, J. Franklin, died in infancy in 1838. Mrs. Row is a daughter of John George Min- iam, who was born on what was then the French side of the Rhine River. He was a tailor by trade, came to Westmoreland county, where he followed farming, and died in 1856, aged eighty-nine years.
Jonathan Row was a member of the Luth- eran church and died February 22, 1866, when in the sixty-fourth year of his age.
One well acquainted with him in life has written of him after death:
"In looking over the files of papers issued from his press, the reader will observe, every- where, the evidences of originality, intelligence, thought, prudence and uprightness as conspic- uous characteristics of the editorial management. When the great southern rebellion burst upon the land, the old man's enthusiasm burn- ed with intense ardor for the salvation of his
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country, and at all times and under all circum- stances, his voice was for maintaining the unity of the states, and upholding the supremacy of the national authority."
GEORGE ROW, ex-editor of the Indiana 5 Register, a prominent and one of the old- est justices of the peace in this county, and the senior member of the real-estate firm of Row & Books, was the well-known editor of the Kingwood Chronicle, which was one of the few Union papers of western Virginia in 1861. He was born near Adamsburg, in Westmore- land county, Pennsylvania, October 24, 1832, and is a son of Jonatlian and Maria C. (Min- iam) Row. [For ancestral history, see sketch of Jonathan Row.]
George Row was reared in Westmoreland county, where he received his education in the common schools. He served a four years' ap- prenticeship to the tanning business, which he did not follow very long. In 1852 he removed to Indiana, where he assisted his father in the printing business for eight years. Upon solicit- ation of prominent parties in Virginia (now W. Va.), he and his brother, Amos Row, in February, 1861, went to the beautiful and pleasant town of Kingwood, the county-seat of Preston county, Va. (now W. Va.), and started the Kingwood Chronicle. They were ardent and radical Unionists, naturally encountered all the hostility of the Secession element of that section, and were repeatedly threatened with personal violence and the destruction of their press. In May, 1861, it was rumored that the press would be destroyed, and the Row brothers, with other prominent citizens, would be hanged. This elicited the following in the issue of the Chronicle for June 8th : " We have endeavored to pursue a fair and frank course throughout, both as publishers and as citizens, and, feeling thus, we have no fears for our persons or prop- erty through or by process of law ; and as for
mobs, we hate and despise them." The Chron- icle was a folio of seven columns to the page, and while ardently advocating the preservation of the Union and the suppression of the Great Rebellion, was not lacking in literary merit or deficient in county news. Copies of the paper, still preserved at Kingwood, bear evidence to the patriotism and editorial ability of its "Yan- kee" editors, as they were termed by the Seces- sionists. The governor of Virginia, in January, 1861, convened the Legislature of that State in extra session. The Kingwood Chronicle, soon thereafter, pointed out the fallacy of the non- coercive policy demanded by the Virginia legis- lature. Referring to the persistent efforts of leading secessionists to intimidate the Union settlement, on April 6th the Chronicle fearlessly condemned the fanaticism of secession as viti- ating the moral sense of society in all classes ; and further reviewing the violent measures threatened from Richmond, the Chronicle as- sumed that the people of West Virginia would not suffer themselves, by any means whatever, to be coerced out of the Union, or be compelled to fight the battles of those who were seeking to oppress her, without a struggle. Herein was foreshadowed tlie formation of a public sentiment which bore its legitimate fruits a lit- tle farther on in time, in the division of the old State of Virginia. George Row again ar- gued that in the Secession action of the State government was the hope of West Virginia ; that western Virginia being the only loyal part of the State, upon her devolved all the respon- sibility of the government and the election of officers by the sovereign people in convention assembled, and supported his position by a lengthy and able argument. On June 29, 1861, George Row strictly advanced and advocated the importance of a division of the State. He said : " The question is an important one, and the dissimilarity of interests in the eastern and western sections demand for it very grave con- siderations." ... " For a long while the basis
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