USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Catasauqua > A history of Catasauqua in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania > Part 20
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Edwin C. Koons was educated in the Catasauqua schools and made good
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use of his time and opportunities. When a young man, he learned the machinist trade at the Davies and Thomas foundry, where he served for seven years. After a service of two years at the old Bryden Horse Shoe plant, he entered his father's office as clerk. Upon. the death of his father, Governor Hastings appointed him Justice of the Peace, February 25, 1898, to fill the unexpired term. His com- mission ran out May 1, 1899. Since then he has been elected to his office for three consecutive terms, which bespeaks the value of his services and the esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens. His commission runs out December 31, 1915. Mr. Koons possesses an exceptionally large and well chosen law library for the office of a justice. Most of this was the accumulation of his father.
THOMAS QUINN. The subject of this sketch is a native of Ireland, who was brought to America by his parents when he was but a tender infant. They located at Laubachsville, now the borough of Northampton. After he had at- tained to young manhood and finished the course of studies prescribed for a country school district, he was sent to the Pieree Business College in Philadelphia. With his diploma under his arm, he returned to Laubachsville in order to enter into partnership with the Associate Judge Joseph Laubach. While the Judge presided over the Northampton County Courts at Easton, Mr. Quinn ran the Laubach general store.
In 1879 he came to Catasauqua where he opened a general store at the corner of Front and Walnut Streets. After enjoying a fine trade for twenty years, Mr. Quinn retired and located at 1124 Second Street. Sinee that time he was elected Justice of the Peace of the Borough of North Catasauqua for three sueeessive terms. This is a fine compliment to a worthy man. Mr. Quinn en- listed from Northampton in Company B of the 153rd Regiment of the Pennsyl- vania Volunteers. He was wounded at Chancellorsville and taken prisoner. For six weeks he lay in Libby Prison, until an exchange of prisoners was made. He immediately rejoined his regiment but was wounded again in the battle of Gettysburg.
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CORNELIUS F. ROTH, ESQ., was born at the Iron Bridge, Lehigh County, Pa., March 13, 1856, and is the son of Owen T. and Feyetta (Minnich) Roth. He came to Catasauqua in 1864 and learnt the art of photography from G. D. Lentz. His former wife to whom he was married February 7. 1878, was Miss Josephine Minnich of Walnutport, Pa. Their only surviving daughter is Matilda Feyetta Roth. Mrs. Roth hav- ing died December 18, 1893, Mr. Roth entered into matrimony with Cora E. Drumheller of Conyngham, Pa., Feb- ruary 28, 1901.
He was elected Justice of the Peace in 1906 and opened his office in CORNELIUS F. ROTH his photograph parlors on Bridge Street. The community expressed its appreciation of his good judgment and sense of equity by re-electing him to his office in 1912.
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CHAPTER X .- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
BIERY. The farm land now covered by the lower portion of the town was the property of Frederick Biery at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Crane Company purchased the site of the furnaces from him. He had five sons : Daniel, Jonas, Solomon, David and William; and three daughters, Mrs. Nicholas Snyder, Mrs. Samuel Koehler, and Mrs. Jacob Buehler. Three fine, two-story, eut-stone dwellings erected by him in 1826, 1830 and 1835, respectively, still stand on Raee Street and are in a remarkably good state of preservation. Fred- eriek Biery died in 1845.
SOLOMON BIERY converted the dwelling erected in 1826 into an Inn and was its noble proprietor for many years. He served as post master of the Burg from 1855 to 1861, and had a valuable interest in the firm of Frederick and Company, carbuilders at Fullerton. His wife was Mary Magda- lene, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George and Hannah (nee Haas) Frederick. She was born January 17, 1811, and died at the age of eighty-two years, August 29, 1893. Solomon and Magdalene Biery were the parents of Catharine, wife of the late Charles F. Beek, father of our townsmen, Frank C. and George Beek. Solo- mon Biery was born August 17, 1808, and died January 20, 1874. His mother's maiden name was Salome Knauss.
JONAS BIERY was a thrifty farmer and lived in the old farmhouse on Race Street, east of Front, now the possession of August Hohl. He owned all the land now covered by the Third Ward and the Howertown Avenue section of the First Ward. Lime stone was quarried on his farm for the furnaces, and al- though his royalty was but three cents per ton it netted him over $40,000. He was born January 28, 1804. April 8, 1827, he was married to Salome Kiechel. He died November 28, 1874.
DANIEL BIERY tilled his farm near Weaversville, now owned by Peter
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J. Laubach, for many years. David Biery owned a farm near Miekley's and William Biery died while young.
FAUST. Although there were two brothers, Bastian and John Faust, who, with their families, and upon invitation of William Penn, came from the Palati- nate early in the eighteenth century and settled in Albany Township, Berks County, Pa. It is surmised that Heury was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Bastian Faust. This son, Henry, who was the great-grandfather of Paul Faust, pur- chased the farm of 1931% acres of Robert Gibson. He died April 14, 1795.
llis son. JJohn Philip Faust, one of eight children, gained possession of the homestead and erected the beautiful stone mansion razed but a few years ago by the Bryden Horse Shoe Company in order to make room for the extension of their works.
After John's death, about 1831, his son, Jonas Faust, who was one of four surviving children, took the farm at the appraisement of $55 per acre. Jonas Faust was married to Susannah Paul with whom he reared seven children : Paul, of Catasauqua ; Joseph, of Sonth Whitehall; Reuben, of Catasauqua ; David, pres- ident of the Union National Bank of Philadelphia ; William, of Allentown ; Eliza- beth (Mrs. Laub of Kreidersville) ; and Maria (Mrs. Koeh of Allentown). The pieture inserted in Chapter XII shows the house and the brothers and sisters at an Old Home gathering some time during the seventies.
Upon the death of Jonas Faust, in the fall of 1833, his son Paul took the farm at the appraisement of $50 per aere, January 24, 1834. His grandfather, John, bought five aeres of land from George (Yarrick) Roekel, being the ground now bounded by Third Street on the West, Howertown Avenue on the East, Pine Street on the South and Walnut Street on the North; and he sold eleven acres along the river-front to the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. It was necessary for Paul to make himself responsible for three dowers, viz., to his great-grandmother, Catharine, who still lived and occupied a small house at the lower spring, now the site of the F. W. Wint and Company planing mill ; to his grandmother, Barbara, who died October 4, 1842, at the residence of her daughter, the stone house at the Northampton (Stemton) entrance to the bridge across the Lehigh; and to his mother Susannah, who by a second marriage be-
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came Mrs. Henry Breisch and lived at Third and Bridge Streets on an eleven aere farm, purchased from a Mr. Gross.
For a man only twenty-four years of age, and at a time when there was a stringeney in the money market, to undertake such a proposition was no small matter. Mr. Faust however was a large-hearted, kind, and, at the same time, a fearless man. He was a man of strong physical and mental characteristics. And, although designing and unscrupulous men often imposed upon him, he managed to pay off all his debts and hold a property valued at the close of the War at $75,000. In 1860 he began to sell building lots, the first of which went to the Catholic Church at Second and Chapel Streets.
Mr. Faust was born September 30, 1809. He married Amelia, daughter of George and Polly (nee Wetzell) Breinig, January 6, 1835, and died November 12, 1883, aged 74 years. His wife, Amelia, was born in Long Swamp Township, Berks County, Pa., September 7, 1816, and died March 14, 1894, at the age of 77 years. There were five children : Amy (Mrs. Borger) of Peru Ill .; Walter; Jane (Mrs. Koehler) of Easton; M. Alice; and Clara B. (Mrs. Nicholas).
BREINIG. The remotest ancestor of George Breinig is traced to Long- swamp Township, Berks County, Pa. The great-grandfather of George was a member of the building committee that erected the original Lehigh Church, near Alburtis, Pa., during 1745. His father's name was George; and his mother's, Elizabeth, a born Egner. During his youth he was sent to school in the "Irish Settlement," now the defunct Weaversville Academy, and on his way to and fro he passed the beautiful farm irrigated by the Catasauqua Creek. Some years later he purchased this fertile farm of two hundred forty-five acres, in Allen Township, from the estate of Peter Beisel, and took possession of it in 1832. His wife was a Miss Maria Wetsel. Their son Simon Breinig, who was born at Mertztown, Pa., October 29, 1827, married Elizabeth Catharine, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth, nee Ehret, Dech, February 13, 1862, and succeeded his father on the farm. George Breinig died June 2, 1871, at the age of eighty years. He served as a member of the Building Committee of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. He was a strong, intelligent and self-reliant man. ITis son Simon farmed the old place for many years. After his son JJoseph en-
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tered into matrimony, Simon retired, leaving the farm in his son's care. Simon Breinig died January 7, 1906, seventy-eight years of age.
JOHN GEORGE KURTZ. The pioneer of the Kurtz family in this section was John George Kurtz. He settled in Hanover Township on the east bank of the Catasauqua Creek. in 1760. The wooded expanse of country extending to and far beyond Sehoenersville was styled "Dry-lands" since this whole territory has no springs or rills, and during drought seasons of the year cattle had to be driven to the Lehigh River for water. After Mr. Kurtz had erected his house (now the stone house near the Rubber Works), he brought his family from the Fatherland. In 1839 the large farm was divided into two sections. One son, Henry, took the western ; another, George, the eastern portion. For many years these gentlemen refused to sell land for building lots, which shows why the Third Ward extends off toward the east like a thumb on a hand (the fingers being Catasauqua proper). While negotiations were going on for the purchase of the plot of ground on which St. Paul's Lutheran Church now stands, Lydia, the wife of Henry Kurtz, threatened to scald with boiling water the gentlemen who came to bargain for the same.
JACOB DEILY wooed and won Miss Mary Geissinger, daughter of George and Christian (nee Hartman) Geissinger of Upper Saucon, Lehigh County, Pa., and was married March 17, 1813. Mr. Deily was born September 15, 1789, and his wife, October 9, 1794. The newly married couple began housekeeping on Lehigh Hill, Allentown, where Mr. Deily worked as a cobbler. Mrs. Deily's father bought the George Taylor farm from John Beisel, June 13, 1821; after which Mr. and Mrs. Deily moved to the farm with their family. George Taylor was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and very probably built the stone farm house still standing above the southeastern corner of the Wahnetah Silk Mill. The farm consisted of one hundred fifty aeres of land which was very productive and soon placed Mr. Deily upon his feet. The ehil- dren whom they brought to maturity were: George; Sarah, Mrs. Rudolph Kent, of Philadelphia ; Eliza, Mrs. Daniel Levan, of Siegfrieds; Maria, Mrs. Samuel Colver, of Allentown ; Franeis J .; Matilda, Mrs. Robert Jaeger of Allentown ; Solomon; and Clara, Mrs. Edward Brown, of Bethlehem, Pa. David Thomas
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and his family ate their first dinner at Catasauqua at the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Deily. Mr. Deily died May 14, 1881, at the age of ninety-one years; and his wife died March 26, 1883, at the age of eighty-eight years.
GEORGE DEILY was born in Allentown, September 2, 1815, and worked on the farm for his father for fifteen years after he had reached his majority. In 1851 his father, Jacob Deily, "set him up in business" as merchant in a general store in the beautifully cut stone building now owned by George B. F. Deily on Race Street at the Canal Bridge. His predecessors were James Lackey and Joseph Laubach. The Deily store was a popular trading place and its shrewd proprietor rapidly accumulated wealth. The freshet of 1862 filled the first floor of the building with water to within but a few inches of the ceiling, and destroyed the whole stock. Mr. Deily disposed of his stock and converted the store room into the parlor of his home, and devoted all his time to overseeing his farms lying east of Catasauqua. At the time of his death he owned five large farms. He entered into matrimony with Elizabeth, daughter of Gen. Ben- jamin Fogel and his wife Anna (nec Trexler) of Fogelsville, June 2, 1857, Their children are: Mary C., who was born July 14, 1858, and since July 3, 1889, is the wife of Peter J. Laubach, who is her senior by six months from January 20 of the year of her birth; and George B. F., who was born August 14, 1865. George Deily died at the age of eighty-seven years, November 17, 1902, and his widow died at the age of seventy-three years, October 4, 1831.
FRANCIS J. DEILY was born July 31, 1824. Like his brothers, he worked on the farm, and after his father's decease bought it March 17, 1884. His brother, Solomon, who remained a bachelor all his life, stayed with Francis and his family and worked on the farm. Later Solomon became a drover; and Francis and he butchered and peddled meat in and around Catasauqua. Thus the brothers accumulated considerable property.
Francis was married to Sarah A., daughter of Rudolph and Salome (nee Best) Dech of the vicinage of Bath, Pa., October 19, 1858. Their only child was Camilla E., who was born in the old Taylor house, September 5, 1863. She became the wife of Dr. Charles E. Milson, October 21, 1884, and became the mother of four daughters: Gertrude A., Helen C., Ruth D., and Marie.
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Mr. Deily built the beautiful briek home opposite the old farm house and retired early in the seventies. Here he died October 9, 1897, at the age of sev- enty-seven years.
JOHN PETER. John Peter came from Heidelberg where he was born in 1799. Ilis house stood in the Crane yards at a point west of the Express office. He purchased his farm from Andrew Hower, the heirs of John Philip Faust, and others, and took possession of the same in 1823. His original dwelling was ereeted by John Youndt. Later he erected a stone mansion on Front Street above Walnut, now a part of the stables of F. W. Wint and Company. He de- voted nine years to weaving. After the canal was completed he served the Company as lock-tender for some years. That portion of his farm which had not been acquired by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company or sold into building lots he sold to David Thomas in 1851. He lived in Bethlehem until the death of his wife, when he made his home with his daughter, Mrs. Owen Swartz, at Allentown, where he died at an advanced age. Their children were : Franklin, Joseph, Susannah, and Mersena. .
JONATHAN SNYDER. Another contemporary of the originals of Cata- sauqua was Jonathan Snyder, who came from Schoenersville, Pa. Mr. Snyder was a bright man and an exceptionally fine penman. He was given charge of the loeks opposite the Crane Iron Works in 1839, and commissioned to collect all tolls for this section of the canal. When the town became a Borough, he was elected and served as assessor for many years. His only survivors are his grand- children, the members of the Williams family at Second and Bridge Streets.
DAVID THOMAS. He whom a grateful people delight to call the Father of Catasauqua is David Thomas. "Father Thomas" was a pioneer in founding many institutions in our town. He was brought to this country to make iron with anthracite ("Stone-coal") coal; and although not the first in this country to use this material in the manufacture of iron, he was the first to make a suc- cessful use of it in a commercial way, wherefore he is affectionately styled the "Father of the American Anthracite Iron Industry." His mind and soul were not entirely absorbed in and welded into pigs of iron, but he enjoyed a broad
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and lofty outlook into divine and eternal things. Simultaneously with the furnaces, came the erection of a church (House of prayer) under his direction. Through the furnaces his men merited bread for the body and through the Church the Father of Lights gave Bread and all good gifts to His believing people. Father Thomas began the erection of homes for working people. Ile laid the first water mains that served a municipality with a necessary commodity. He erected the first publie time piece, the sun-dial. His pen draughted many
DAVID THOMAS
.ordinanees for Borough regulation and legislation, which are still potent.
"Father Thomas" was the only son of his parents, David and Jane Thomas of Tyllwyd (Gray House), in the parish of Cadoxtan, Glamorganshire, South Wales, and was born November 3, 1794. When he was a youth of seventeen
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summers, he found employment in the machine shop of the Neath Abbey Iron Works Six years later, 1817. Richard Parsons, the owner of the Yniseedwyn Iron Works, invited young Thomas to the superintendeney of his works, in- eluding also the coal and iron mines. He held this position for twenty-two Years.
Efforts were made in America to manufacture iron with anthracite coal in a number of places, but snecess had not thus far crowned the work. Mr. Thomas experimented with hot blast stoves invented by James Neilson, in 1828, at the Yniseedwyn furnace. He obtained plans and a license from Mr. Neilson 10 erect hot blast ovens by means of which, February 7, 1838, he declared the problem of the production of iron with hard coal practically solved. The Yniseedwyn furnace produced from thirty-four to thirty-six tons a week.
News of this success soon reached America, where able and enterprising men stood ready to utilize this valuable discovery. The Lehigh Coal and Navi- gation Company promptly arranged to send its representative, Erskine Hazard, to Wales, where he arrived, November, 1838, to investigate and study the opera- tion of the new hot blast. After satisfying himself that Mr. Thomas had solved the important problem, Mr. Hazard entered into an agreement with him on be- half of the Lehigh Crane Iron Company to come to America and to ereet and to operate blast furnaces, suitable for anthracite coal, on the Lehigh River.
Early in May the young iron master with his family consisting of his wife. Elizabeth, nee Hopkins, three sons-Samuel, John, and David, Jr., and two daughters-Jane and Gwenllian (the latter, the wife of Joshua Hunt) set sail from Swansea bound for Liverpool. where they embarked on the clipper ship "Roscuis" for America. They arrived at Allentown, July 9, 1839. On July 11, with his son Samuel, he came on foot to Craneville (Catasauqua) then a primeval forest. By July 3, 1840, the first furnace was completed and in blast. The Crane Iron Company erected a home for him on Front Street directly oppo- site the furnaces. Mr. Thomas occupied this dwelling with his family until 1856, when he moved into his new home erected by him on Second and Pine Streets.
The influence of Mr. Thomas as an iron master extended far and wide. Ile was a promoter of the large iron works at Hokendanqua. He bore a large share
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of the enterprise that opened railroads, ore and coal mines, and stone quarries. He took a great interest in the political, financial, religions, and charitable insti- tutions of the town. He was a consistent member of the Presbyterian Church and an ardent supporter of the local Total Abstinence Society. He died June 20. 1882, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and his body rests in the Thomas vault in Fairview Cemetery.
SAMUEL THOMAS. Inspired by the example of a noble father, the "Father of the Anthracite Iron Industry in America," Samuel Thomas never departed from the sphere of an iron merchant. Although engaged in many and various enterprises he devoted most of his time and strength to the welfare of the Thomas Iron Company.
Samuel Thomas, son of David and Elizabeth (nee Hopkins) Thomas was born in Yniscedwyn, Brecknockshire, South Wales, March 13, 1827; and at the age of thirteen years his parents brought him to this country. He had studied English in Wales, and when the family was settled in Catasauqua, he was sent to school for two years at Nazareth Hall, Nazareth, Pa. Upon his return from school he entered the blacksmith and machine shops of the Crane Iron Works and learnt his trade. At the age of but nineteen years, he already took an active part in the management of the works. In 1848 he superintended the erection of a furnace for the Boonton Iron Company in Morristown, N. J. By October of that year the furnace was in blast. At the close of the year he returned to erect furnaces No. 4 and 5 at home. When the Thomas Iron Company was chartered during the winter of 1853 and 1854, and two hundred acres of land purchased at Hokendauqua for the erection of furnaces, Mr. Thomas was ap- pointed superintendent. March 1. 1854. He erected two furnaces forthwith, and served the Company as superintendent for ten years. He was chosen a director of the Company and elected its president August 31, 1864. He organized the Lock Ridge Iron Company at Alburtis, Pa., and erected the first furnace in 1867. In company with his father he visited a section now known as Thomas in Alabama, in May, 1868, for the purpose of exploiting. In Angust of this year he went again and purchased large tracts of mineral lands. Mr. Thomas resigned the presidency of the Thomas Iron Company September 22, 1887, in
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order to devote himself to the creetion of an iron plant in the South. His long cherished desire was brought to a successful issue under the management of his son Edwin as vice-president. The first furnace was built at Thomas, near
SAMUEL THOMAS
Birmingham, Alabama, under the name of the Pioneer Mining and Manufac- turing Company. There were two furnaces, coke ovens, and coal and iron mines. The property was sold in 1899 to the Republic Iron and Steel Company.
Mr. Thomas was a keen student, a close observer and an able writer. His masterpiece was written on "Reminiscences of the Early Anthracite Iron In-
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dustry" and read by him before the American Institute of Mining Engineers at the California meeting in September, 1899. Like his father, Mr. Thomas took an active and effective interest in community affairs in Hokendauqua as well as in Catasauqua. He contributed liberally toward the erection of the Soldiers' Monument in Fairview Cemetery, made from designs approved by him, in memory of the brave men from Catasauqua and environs, who fought for the preservation of the Union, and this was the first erected soldiers' monument after the Civil War. Although he took a live interest in political affairs and voted with the Republican party, he never aspired for office. For many years he was an Elder in the First Presbyterian Church which he supported with a liberal hand. Mr. Thomas found his pleasing recreation in travel. He visited the scenes of his childhood on various occasions. A study of the architectural ruins of Syria and Egypt impressed him most profoundly.
IIe wedded Miss Rebecca Mickley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Mickley of Mickley's, Pa., in March, 1848. To this union two children were born : Ger- trude, wife of Dr. Joseph C. Guernsey of Philadelphia, and Edwin of Catasau- qua. Mrs. Thomas departed this life in the fall of 1891. In the spring of 1894 Mr. Thomas married Miss Julia M. Beerstecher, a native of Neuveville, Switzerland. He died February 21, 1906, and his remains rest in the Thomas vault in Fairview Cemetery.
EDWIN THOMAS. Edwin Thomas, grandson of David, was born in Catasauqua April 9, 1853. He attended the public schools of town, prepared for college at Swarthmore, and entered Lafayette College with the class of 1873.
Upon leaving college he entered the em- ploy of the Thomas Iron Company at Hoken- dauqua as machinist. After a service of three years he was placed in charge of the Com- pany's plant at Lock Ridge, Pa., as superin-
EDWIN THOMAS
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tendent. He retained this position for three years, when he accepted the super- intendeney of the furnaces of the Chestnut Hill Iron Ore Company, at Columbia, Pa. After two years he returned to the Hokendauqua plant of the Thomas Iron Company to serve for four years as purchasing agent and manager of the mechanical department.
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