Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, Part 74

Author: Gresham, John M. cn; Wiley, Samuel T. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia [Dunlap & Clarke]
Number of Pages: 1422

USA > Pennsylvania > Westmoreland County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania > Part 74

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Benjamin Budd received his education in the subscription schools and has devoted his life to the pursuits of agriculture in his native place. He is politically a republican and together with his wife and four children is identified with the Baptist church. Mr. Budd served twenty-seven years as captain of the State militia.

Benjamin Budd on January 1, 1851, united in marriage with Jeanette Neff, of West New- ton, and they had eight children : Joseph (de- ceased) ; Andrew, married to Carrie MeHenry, and living in Rostraver township ; Elizabeth, wife of Albert MeKelvey, of Sewickley town- ship ; Bertha E. (deceased), Edward, married to Annie McKelvey, of Sewickley township ; Mer- win, Silva, wife of Harry Steen, of Rostraver township, and Lavina.

ILLIAM A. BYARS was born in For- far, Forfarshire, Scotland, December 25, 1840, and is a son of James and Margaret (Anderson) Byars, both natives of Forfar, Forfarshire, Scotland. James Byars who still resides in Scotland, was born in 1804. He learned the trade of dyer of cloth, and was afterwards given a position in the Post- Office department of Scotland. He was married in 1828. Ilis wife was a daughter of Robert Anderson and the mother of ten children, six sons and four daughters. William Byars, father of James Byars, was a native of Sateford, Scotland, and was born about 1768 ; he was also a dyer of cloth and was married to Mary But- cher and had nine children. They were both members of the established church of Scot- land ; the former died in 1805 and the latter in 1837.

William A. Byars remained with his parents and attended the ordinary and high schools. On leaving school he worked in a general mer- chandising store for three years; he was in Glas- gow for two years and Dundee two years in a general store as clerk. In 1864 he left his native land and went to South America where he accepted a position of clerk in a store at Iquique, Peru. He remained there until 1869, during which time he traveled through nearly all the South American republics and returned to Scotland in 1870. In 1871 he came to the United States and located in Philadelphia where

W. R. Covers

Photo by Springer.

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WESTMORELAND COUNTY.

he got employment as clerk ; he remained there for only a short time when he came to Pitts- burg and lived till 1874. In 1874 he came to Westmoreland county, located at Bethany where for three years he was engaged in general mer- chandise and when he removed to Stoner's branched out in the general merchandising and is at present carrying on a flourishing business. In 1877 he was married to Elizabeth, a daughter of John Stise, of Bethany. To them have been born five children, names and births respec- tively : Margaret A., born January 12, 1879; James Andrew, born February, 1881; John William, born May, 1883; William Anderson, March, 1885; David, born July, 1887.

He is a republican and both he and wife are members of the " church of God." He is a man of considerable information gotten from ex- tensive travel and reading and is one of the county's representative business men.

P EV. WILLIAM R. COVERT. The world contains plenty of men who never rise above mediocrity, not because they lack intellectual ability, but because they have no push, no energy, no force of character. Among the men who possess a proper combination of mental power, physical vigor and force of char- acter is Rev. W. R. Covert, the pastor of the church of God at Stoners, Pa. He was born December 17, 1853, in Fayetteville, Lawrence county, Pa., and is a son of Joseph and Sophia (Ross) Covert.

The Covert family originally came from France in 1625 and settled near New York city. They were always a hardy people and noted for their longevity. They are at present quite num- erous, eighteen hundred of the family having at- tended a re-union at Seneca, N. Y., June 15, 1889. Rev. W. R. Covert's great-great-grand- father, Luke Covert. was born in Harlem, N. Y., September 15, 1741, and he had a son Gar- rett Covert (great-grandfather) who was born

September 15, 1769. Thomas Covert (grand- father) was born February 16, 1798, near Tren- ton, New Jersey. During most of his life he was engaged in the mercantile business at the town on the P. & E. railroad that now bears his name. He died at Covert's Mills, Pa., in 1872. Joseph Covert (father) was born in Lawrence county, Pa., June 22, 1818, and now resides near London, Mercer county, Pa., where he is engaged in farming and raising fine stock. He was married June 15, 1843, to Sophia, a daugh- ter of Peter Ross, of Westmoreland county, Pa., who was born of Scotch-Irish parents August 8, 1828, died November 20, 1804, and who was the mother of eight children of whom five are living. His second wife, to whom he was mar- ried September 24, 1865, was Mrs. Elizabeth Anderson, who was born August 8, 1833, and who bore him four children. The children by the first marriage were : Nancy Jane, born Sep- tember 9, 1845; Samuel, born December 19, 1847 ; Mary Elizabeth, born June 16, 1850, and died March 31, 1851; Rachel, born March 10, 1852, and died July 3, 1852; (Rev.) Will- iam Ross, born December 17, 1853 ; John Hez- ekiah, born December 10, 1855; James Domer, born September 11, 1858; Martha Emma, born December 16, 1862, and died December 5, 1864. The children by the second wife were : Sherman Fuller, born October 24, 1866; Forney Ells- worth, born August 6, 1868; Lewis Burton, born January 28, 1874; and Lizzie Etta, born July 23, 1877. Joseph Covert was a democrat until Lincoln's first administration when he be- came an earnest, active republican. IIe began life a poor boy but by his enterprise and business qualifications has amassed considerable wealth.

Rev. W. R. Covert was reared in Mercer county, Pa., attended the public schools and was a student several terms in the Edinboro State Normal school. In 1872 he migrated to Wap- pello, Iowa, was ordained a minister of the gos- pel at Harmony, Iowa, in October, 1874, and assigned a charge. In 1876 he removed to

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Monmouth, Ill., thence to Warrensburg, same State, where owing to illness he was obliged to relinquish his studies at Lincoln University as well as his pastoral charge. He then returned to his father's home in Mercer county, l'a., where he remained recruiting his health for a year, after which he was sent as general mission- ary to Crete, Nebraska. In 1878 he was ap- pointed pastor of a church at Decatur, Ill. ; re- turned in a year to Mercer county and opened a mission at Clark Mills, preaching there for two years and at the same time attending Grove City college. Ile was then sent to Pittsburg as pas- tor of the Townsend street church where he re- mained five years, attaining quite a reputation, his sermons being frequently printed in the Commercial Gazette. In 1886 he became pas- tor of the church of God at Stoners, where he has received more than ninety persons into the church fellowship which now numbers more than two hundred and forty members. In all his charges he has been popular with the people and has done most excellent work for the church. Ile is a very active member of the Prohibition party and was chairman of the State convention at Harrisburg in 1889. Ile is a prominent mem- ber and lecturer of the Jr. O. U. A. M. At the re-union of the Covert family to be held in 1890 he is to be historian.

Rev. W. R. Covert has won an enviable repu- tation as a public debater, especially in repre- senting the church of God, in discussions with Rev. Clark Braden, of the Disciple church and W. E. Kelley, the apostle of the Latter Day Saints. In his great debate in Philadelphia in 1885 against Spiritualism he publicly affirmed that every medium was either a dupe, a liar, a fraud or a knave; and he offered five hundred dollars to any medium who could perform any of so-called spiritual manifestations which he could not duplicate or explain and demonstrate to be a fraud. While hundreds of Spiritualists, including many noted mediums, were present none of them would accept his offer which is

still open to any medium in the world, whom he will meet at any time. Rev. Covert does not denounce honest spiritualists as he knows they are deluded-but the medium who knowingly deludes the people.

As a scientist Rev. William R. Covert has gained considerable reputation. He was as- sociated for several years with Prof. J. Stanley Grimes, of Chicago, and wrote the introduction to " Geonomy," the crowning work of this great scientist which was published by J. B. Lippin- cott & Co. In the introduction Rev. Covert en- dorses the beautiful and original theory : That the growth of the world's gravitation is due to a single cause, the condensation of ether and that electricity, heat and light are motions of ether, or stated more generally, that every par- ticle of matter is continually assimilating and condensing ether, at the same time setting free its latent heat which produces vacua, which the surrounding ether moves in to fill and the move- ment thus produced is the immediate cause of gravitation. That the internal heat and light of suns and planets and our earth are due to a single cause, the condensation of ether. That the la- tent heat is set free in the earth by the conden- sation of ether not having an opportunity to radiate or escape as fast as set free, produces the internal heat in the earth and the expansion caused by heat and chemical combinations with the sinking of the ocean beds produces earth- quakes and volcanoes. The light and heat of the sun is founded upon the principle that " the larger a globe is the less is the area of its sur- face in proportion to its magnitude," and, there- fore, the more concentrated and intense must be its radiation. That the radiations of the sun, which contains all but a mere fraction (1-700 part) of the matter of the solar system, are so intense that its surface becomes luminous. If the sun were broken into small globes like our carth it would soon cease to be self-luminous. Another new and original theory is " our conti- nents were created by the agency of the ocean

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currents." The cause of the ocean currents is gravitation, heat, cold, rotation of the earth and inertia active and passive. And that before there was any " dry land " there was three pairs of elliptical ocean currents that collected sediment on the ocean's bed which originally produced three pairs of sinking basins which forced the plastic strata from beneath them and caused it to raise the earth's ernst in the inter-oceanie spaces and thus creating originally three pairs of continents, North and South America, Europe and South Africa, and Asia and Australia."

Rev. Covert's theory is : this would of neces- sity cause the land to rise around the poles or at the north first, which would shut out the warm water or the ocean currents from the poles and thus produced the " Glacial Epoch " in which mighty glaciers advanced from the north in not only the " tertiary age " but also in the " car- boniferous " or " coal age" sinking the earth's surface and carrying sediment, rock, gravel and sand and spreading it over the low lands further south, and thus covering up the accumulation of the luxuriant vegetation of ages and sinking them below the ocean's surface ; and thus the pressure and heat set free by the condensation of ether with chemical union or combination formed the coal beds, the process would be repeated as the earth's surface would slowly rise again after the glaciers would melt ; and thus we find coal beds that grew on the earth's surface with sea- rock formed over them and this covered with sand, gravel, etc., and this repeated several times, as there are different beds of coal one above the other with ocean-formed rock between them, showing there has been several Glacial Epochs or risings and sinkings of the continents.

In mental science Rev. Covert is quite an ex- pert having been called in insanity cases. IIe has not only adopted Prof. Grimes' science of the mind, but carried it beyond the point left by his preceptor, the discoverer of this new science, who was himself a student of Spurzheim, one of the founders of the science of phrenology.

Briefly stated, Rev. Covert's theory is that the seat of consciousness is located in the upper part of the medulla oblongata as located by Prof. Grimes in 1838 ; that the mind is a unit but has faculties, and that each faculty of the mind has a corresponding organ in the brain and nervous system, and as in proportion as the brain and nervous system is perfect the natural phenomena of the mind is perfect. It is not the eye that sees or the ears that hear, but the mind sees and hears through these organs and in proportion as these organs are perfect the phenomena of the mind, i. e. sight and hearing, are perfect and so with every other faculty. Hence if all men's brains were exactly alike all men would be equally alike mentally. The reason men natur- ally differ in mental phenomena, such as mathe- maties, music, poetry, language, mechanism, etc., is because the organs of the brain are not all equally developed. The mental faculties are divided in two grand divisions-the " Intellect- uals " and " Propensities ;" the intellectuals are divided into the perceptives and reflectives ; the propensities into the " Ipseal " and " Social." The Ipseal into the " Corporal," " Belligerent," " Prudential," ". Industrial " and " Improving." The social into the " Domestic," " Governing" and " Conforming." Monomania is caused by one faculty being diseased or affected. Emotional insanity is caused by the propensities being dis- ordered. Idiocy is caused by the intellectual organs of the brain being deformed, destroyed or diseased; as a person may be blind and yet hear, so a person may be monomania or emo- tional insane and not intellectual insane, because the faculties of the mind are not a unit. Mesmer- ism is a species of sleep produced by the undue excitement of the conforming organs. Those who are subject to it can be mesmerized and can be healed of certain diseases by faith. The will de jure is a resultant or decision of all the men- tal propensities. The will de facto is one faculty or propensity running the mental congress.

Rev. W. R. Covert was united in marriage

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January 1, 1889, with Miss Ida, a daughter of | Daniel B. Stoner, of near Stonerville. The marriage ceremony was performed in the church by Rev. C. II. Forney, D. D., editor of the Church Advocate, of Harrisburg, and Rev. W. II. McElveen, of New Brighton, acted as mas- ter of ceremonies. The church was beautifully decorated, the guests were numerous and distin- guished and the presents elegant and costly.

S AMUEL DAUGHERTY was born April 24, 1843, at West Newton, Westmoreland county, Pa., and is a son of Benjamin and Susan (Coldsmith) Daugherty. His father was a native of Rostraver township, a carpenter by trade and lived all his life in this county. Hle was married to Susan Coldsmith and they had five children : Harriet, wife of Joseph Fin- ley, a carpenter of Rostraver township ; Emily, wife of Ross Wilson, a farmer of Washington county, Pa. ; Albert C., married to Emma Springer and now a resident of Findlay, Ohio, where he is engaged in the furniture business ; Sarah, wife of Israel Maston, of Washington county, and Samuel.

Samuel Daugherty, after attending the com- mon schools, learned the carpenter trade, which he has followed all his life. For about fourteen years he has been in the employ of the Gibson- tou distillery as superintendent. Politically he is and always has been a democrat and takes an active interest in the success of his party. He has served on the county committee almost con- tinuously since 1870 and has been very faithful and valuable in that capacity. He has held all the offices of the borough of Belle Vernon ; was three times elected justice of the peace but served only two terms or ten years. In 1870 Mr. Daugherty was a young man about begin- ning life with no capital but sterling qualities of head and heart, but by economy, energy and diligence, a strict and careful attention to busi- ness he has succeeded beyond his own expecta-

tions and has acquired a valuable farm and an elegant home in Rostraver township, which stand as monuments to his industry and worth. In his community he is highly esteemed and in every respect is an excellent man and citizen.

Samuel Daugherty on July 13, 1870, was united in marriage with Samantha Culler, a daughter of Abram Culler of Washington county, Pa., but now of Belle Vernon and the fruits of their union are six children : Joseph C., William W., Benjamin F., Annie, Laura A. and Eva J.

IEUTENANT WILLIAM C. DUSEN- BERY, a large landholder and prominent citizen of South Huntingdon township and who served in West Virginia during the late war, is a son of Henry and Rebecca (Cham- bers) Dusenbery and was born in Monongalia county, Va. (now W. Va.), April 28, 1826. Ilis grandfathers, John Dusenbery and John Cham- bers, were both natives of Ireland. The former immigrated about 1811 to Monongalia county, Va., where he resided until his death ; and the latter, a Covenanter, came from county Donegal to Pennsylvania and after serving in the Revo- lutionary war settled in Allegheny county, this State. Ilis father, Henry Dusenbery, was born in Philadelphia county, Pa., about 1790, served in the war of 1812 and afterwards removed to Springhill township, Fayette county, Pa., where he remained some eight or ten years and then moved across the State line into Monongalia county, Va. He was a democrat, a member of the M. E. church, and married Rebecca Cham- bers, by whom he had eight children, of whom five are still living.

William C. Dusenbery received his education in the rural schools of his day and worked as a day laborer for ten years at twenty-seven cents per day. He then purchased a farm in Alle- gheny county, Pa., which two years later he rented and bought one of his father's farms in Virginia. Ile also purchased a mill in Marion

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county, that State. Two years later (October 2, 1862) he enlisted in Co. B, 176th Reg. W. Va. Scouts, and was elected first lieutenant, having lacked but one vote of securing the cap- taincy of the company. At the battle of Fair- mount he received an injury in the knee which still gives him trouble. After the war he dis- posed of his West Virginia property and bought a mill in Allegheny county, Pa., which he operated one year, then removed to Enon Val- ley, Lawrence county, Pa., where he conducted a hotel for two years and at the end of that time returned to Allegheny county, Pa., and resided there two years. He then purchased his present farm of 350 aeres in South Hunt- ingdon township and since that time has been actively engaged in farming and the real estate business.

On April 24, 1847, he united in marriage with Hetty Ann Huey. Of their marriage have been born eight children : Henry and Mary (dead) ; Rebecca, wife of John Nicewon- ger, of Mendon ; John (resides with his father), Belle (deceased) ; Dr. Washington, who read medicine, attended lectures at Cleveland, Ohio, married Alice Grover and died at his father's home in Pennsylvania October 11, 1888 ; Jacob B. (deceased) ; and Samuel O., who married Flora Malone and resides with his father.

Lieutenant Dusenbery is a republican in pol- ities, has served as school director in Jefferson township, Allegheny county, Pa., and is an industrious worker in the interests of his party.

AVID ERRETT, one of Sewickley town- ship's most prosperous farmers and a soldier in front of Richmond during the late war, was born in Salem township, West- moreland county, Pa., February 24, 1846, and is a son of Adam and Sarah (Ream) Errett. His paternal grandfather, Adam Errett, Sr., was born in Hempfield township, where he passed his life as a farmer. He was a Lutheran, an okl-

line whig and later a republican. ITis maternal grandfather, Henry Ream, was born in Salem township where he lived till his death. lle was a farmer by occupation, a democrat in political sentiment and a devout member of the Evan- gelical church. Adam Errett (father) was born in 1816, in Hempfield township, in which he has always resided. Ile followed farming till about 1867, when he retired from all active business pursuits. He is a republican in politics and a member of Adamsburg Evangelical Lutheran church. On August 3, 1838, he married Sarah Ream, daughter of Henry Ream, by whom he has had four children, of whom two are living : Cyrus, who lives in Ilempfield township and is engaged in farming and David.

David Errett passed his boyhood days on a farm and attended the common schools of his native township. In 1864 he entered company E, two hundred and sixth reg. Pa. Vols. and served in front of Richmond where he was chiefly em- ployed in doing picket duty and building forti- fications around the doomed capital of the Southern Confederacy. After Lee's surrender he returned home and was engaged in farm- ing in Salem township till 1878, when he removed to Sewickley township and purchased a farm of one hundred and six acres which he has been tilling and improving ever since. In connection with farming he has been engaged in stock-raising for several years.

May 3, 1866, he married Maria Bierer, who is a daughter of Amos Bierer, of Hempfield township. To Mr. and Mrs Errett have been born thirteen children, of whom eleven are living : John M., Adam, Lizzie, Abraham, Nel- son, Sadie, David, Jr., Annie, Amos, Della and Jacob. The two dead are William and Mabel. Mrs. Errett is a member of the Lutheran church at Adamsburg.

In politics Mr. Errett is a republican. In re- ligion he follows the footsteps of his father and grandfather and is a lutheran, being a member of the Adamsburg church of that religions de-

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nomination. He is a prominent and useful mem- ber of Three Graces Lodge, No. 934, I. O. O. F. Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Madi- Soll.

HARLES II. EWIG, a prominent mem- ber of Dravo Methodist Episcopal 'church, a tasteful farmer of Sewickley township and a man of good general informa- tion, was born in Bedford county, Pa., July 1, 1842, and is a son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Hutton) Ewig. His grandfather, Jacob Ewig, was a native of Bedford county, where he al- ways resided. He owned two large farms in Bedford county. He was a well educated man. taught school some but gave his time chiefly to farming. He was a democrat politically, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and married Mary M. Apple who bore him three children : Daniel, Jacob (dead), and Mary (deceased). Ilis maternal grandfather, John Hutton, was born in Lancaster county, Pa., but removed in early life to Salem township. One day he started on horseback to attend some business and was thrown by his horse which fell on him and killed him. Ile was a farmer by occupation and a whig in politics. Daniel Ewig (father) was born in Bedford county in 1811. He followed farm- ing for a few years, then came across the Alle- gheny Mountains in 1854 to Monongahela City, Washington county, Pa., where he was en- gaged in steamboat building for may years, after which he removed to his present home at Mckeesport, Pennsylvania, He is a re- publican, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and married Elizabeth Hutton. To their union have been born ten children : Charles II., Mary J., wife of Albert Wilson ; William (dead), Jacob (deceased), John, an engineer, who mar- ried Margaret J. Wilson ; Nancy, who married Joseph Wood and is dead ; Daniel, who married Jennie Means and is superintendent of the Orme coal-works in Ohio; Laura, wife of Thomas Bower, an artist and photographer in

Mckeesport, Pa. ; Eliza V., died when young; and David who married Ella Bell, and they re- side in Washington county, Pa. William Ewig, the second son, enlisted in 1863 in the hundred and fourteenth reg., Pa. Vol. cavalry, and served nearly to the close of the war. He participated in several battles, was taken prisoner, sent to Libby prison and afterwards exchanged. He died soon after his exchange from the effects of his confinement in Danville prison.

Charles II. Ewig received a good common school education to which he has added largely by constant reading. He has always followed farming and owns fifty-four acres of land which he has improved and made very productive. He is a democrat, was appointed road commissioner is his township by Judge Logan, at expiration of appointment was elected to same office for a period of three years, and has served as school director for a number of years. In 1880 was appointed collector of taxes by county com- missioners. He and his wife and daughter are members of Dravo Methodist Episcopal church, which he has served as trustee, steward, class leader and Sunday school superintendent.

On June 18, 1863, he married Maggie Mc- Donald, who was born May 27, 1834. They have had two children ; Jennie M., an intelli- gent young lady, who was born November 13, 1871 ; attended Meadville and Beaver colleges and makes a specialty of the languages, and Sylvester, born January 25, 1879, and on July 8th of the same year died. Mrs. Ewig has been for thirty years an active sabbath school teacher and earnest church worker. Her mother, whose maiden name was Jane Todd, was born in county Tyrone, Ireland, August 5, 1806, and died February 25, 1874, just twenty-three years after her husband (Alexander McDonald's) death. His father, Alexander McDonald, Sr., owned the farm where Mrs. Ewig and her husband now reside, of which their daughter Jennie is the fifth (5th) generation still living on the farm. In 1883 Mr. Ewig was a delegate to the Lay

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Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, Part 74

Author: Gresham, John M. cn; Wiley, Samuel T. cn Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia [Dunlap & Clarke] Number of Pages: 1422

Author: Gresham, John M. cn; Wiley, Samuel T. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia [Dunlap & Clarke]
Number of Pages: 1422