USA > Pennsylvania > Blair County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Blair County, Pennsylvania > Part 25
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general mercantile business, and then was elected justice of the peace.
In 1858, Mr. Criswell married Elizabeth Geyer, who died in 1866, and left four chil- dren : Jackson H., now dead; Lucinda, de- ceased; Andrew A., who married Ann Thompson, and resides at Mifflintown, this State; Mary E., wife of Lewis Myers, of Bellwood, a conductor on the Pennsylvania & Northwestern railroad, and who is the father of four children. Mr. Criswell mar- ried for his second wife Katie Wilt, of Greenwood township, Juniata county, by whom he had four children: George W .; Elizabeth, wife of John Patterson, of Perry county, who is a teacher in the common schools; Carrie A., of Thompsontown, Juni- ata county, this State; and Roxie R., now dead. Mrs. Katie Criswell passed away in 1879, and on September 30, 1881, he united in marriage with Mrs. Rachel ( Estep) Ross, a native of Petersburg, Huntingdon county. Her grandfather was William Estep, who was born in Traugh Creek valley, Hunting- don county, and her father, Elijah, who was born in the same county, had a family of seven sons and four daughters, of whom two daughters and five sons are living. The sons, John, George, William, Elijah, and Thomas, are all good mechanics and black- smiths. John has retired from active life, and they are all good citizens and stanch republicans.
In politics Mr. Criswell is a republican, and has held various local offices. He was elected as a justice of the peace in 1886, and since the close of his term, in 1890, has been serving as a notary public. He is a member of Sandford Beyer Post, No. 426, Grand Army of the Republic, and has held mem- bership for thirty-six years in Lodge No. 819, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
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Mr. Criswell has been successful in his mer- cantile business, and is highly respected as a man and a citizen.
JOHN A. SPRANKLE, one of the oldest merchants and most highly re- spected citizens of Altoona, is a son of Ben- jamin and Elizabeth ( Anderson ) Sprankle, and was born in Morris township, Hunt- ingdon county, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1829. One of the early settlers of Huntingdon county was John Sprankle, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He was born in Germany, and came to York county, which he soon left to settle in what is now Huntingdon, but was then Bedford county, where he made his home in a section that was mostly in woods. IIe married, and of the children born to him in his forest home, one was Benjamin Sprankle (father), who was born in Morris township, that county, in 1806, on the farm on which he now resides. Like many a farmer's son of half a century ago, he commenced life with good health, but no money, but the lack of financial means did not prevent him from aspiring to business success, which he won after many years of hard labor and judicious management. He purchased his father's farm, which he improved and upon which he erected first-class buildings. He also purchased a valuable farm on Spruce creek, which he still owns, and for nearly fifty years conducted farming and stock raising upon rather an extended scale. He is the oldest man in Morris township, and nearing his eighty-fifth birthday, yet time has dealt kindly with him and left him healthy, active and well preserved physically and mentally for one of his advanced years. Mr. Sprankle is a member of the Reformed
church, of Alexandria, and a republican in politics, and has held several of his town- ship's offices. He married Elizabeth An- derson, a native of Black Lick, Cambria county, by whom he had ten children. Mrs. Sprankle was a member of the German Reformed church, and passed away in 1884, when in the seventy-fourth year of her age.
John A. Sprankle passed his boyhood years on his father's farm, received his education in the common schools, and upou attaining his majority, in 1852, became a clerk in the mercantile store of Isett & Wigton, at Rockhill furnace, in his native county. One year later he came to Al- toona, where he served in the general mercantile establishment of Alexander Mc- Cormick for seven years, and at the end of that time, in the spring of 1861, he em- barked in the general mercantile business for himself. He opened a small store, gave his time and attention entirely to his pa- trons, and by judicious management, fair dealing and untiring industry, acquired a patronage and a volume of business that necessitated for its accommodation, in 1864, the erection of his present large mercantile establishment, on the corner of Ninth street and Eleventh avenue. He carries a large stock of general merchandise, and especially full lines of dry goods, notions, and boots and shoes. He selects his goods with a view to variety and excellence, and has thus secured the confidence of his patrons.
In 1857 Mr. Sprankle married Eliza A. MeKnight, who is a daughter of Robert MeKnight, of Logan township, and a mem- ber of the First Presbyterian church of Al- toona.
John A. Sprankle has been very success- ful as a business man, and owns some valuable real estate in the city, among
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OF BLAIR COUNTY.
which are desirable properties on the cor- ners of Lexington avenue, Chestnut avenue, and Green avenue, with Ninth street. His present tasteful residence, on the corner of Lexington avenue and Ninth street, when it was erected in 1872, was considered the handsomest dwelling on the line of the Pennsylvania railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. Mr. Sprankle is a Blaine re- publican in politics, and has been a member of the First Presbyterian church for many years. Esteemed as a citizen, and respected as a business man, he is truly deserving of his good fortune in life, as he has always been faithful to his friends, honest in his dealings, and loyal to any cause in which he has ever been enlisted.
REV. JOSEPH H. MATHERS, a
graduate of Princeton Theological seminary, is a man of fine natural ability and varied scholastic attainments, who for nearly a quarter of a century has been the popular and successful pastor of the Logan's Valley Presbyterian church at Bellwood, this county. He is the second son of Hon. James and Jane ( Hutchison ) Mathers, and was born August 5, 1832, at Mifflintown, Juniata county, Pennsylvania. The Mathers are of Scotch-Irish stock. Joseph Mathers, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of the Cumberland valley, born and reared near Newville. He was a farmer by occupation, and settled at an early day in the picturesque Juniata valley, where he devoted his active years to agricultural pursuits, the creation of a home, and the careful training of his children. He died at his home in that valley about 1822. Ile married Eleanor Turner, by whom he had a family of six sons and two daughters.
The youngest of these children was James Mathers (father), who was born January 21, 1803, near Newville, Cumberland county, this State, and died at Peru Mills, Juniata county, in 1850, aged forty-seven years. He received a classical education, complet- ing his education under the tutorship of Rev. John Hutchison, whose daughter he afterward married, and for some years practiced surveying, and read law with Hon. Calvin Blythe, a prominent lawyer of Pennsylvania. On completing the pre- scribed course of reading he was admitted to the bar, and successfully practiced his profession until death removed him from the scenes of his earthly career. During his comparatively short career as a practicing lawyer he demonstrated the possession of great natural ability and fine legal acquire- ments. Before his earnest examination the knotty problems of law resolved themselves into first elements, and every point involved stood up singly, clothed only with its direct or remote bearing on the case. He was not specially gifted in speech, but was an able counsellor and a successful advocate. In polities he was a whig, and early became the leader of his party in Juniata county. He served as a member of the house of representatives from Juniata county, and was later elected to the State senate from the senatorial district composed of Mifflin, Juniata, and Union counties. During his service in that body he took an active part in legislation and won considerable distinc- tion. He was an elector on the Clay ticket in the presidential election in 1844, and was a man of good position, unimpeachable character and wide influence. Ilis early death was deeply lamented, for his life foreshadowed a career of untold usefulness, and the ability to write his name prom-
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
inently in the annals of his native State. IIe married Jane Hutchison, a daughter of Rev. John Hutchison, and to their union Was born a family of four children : John HI., now deceased, who graduated from Jef- ferson college, Cannonsburg, this State, in 1849, at the age of nineteen, and became an able and successful lawyer of Sidney, Ohio; Joseph H., the subject of this sketch; James, who graduated from Jefferson col- lege in 1852, was admitted to the bar at Dayton, Ohio, in 1855, and died in Penn- sylvania at the early age of twenty-two years; and one who died in infancy.
Rev. John Hutchison, maternal grand- father, was a native of Dauphin county, this State, and of old Scotch stock. He grad- uated from Dickinson college about the beginning of the present century, and later took a course in theology under the Rev. Dr. Charles Nesbit, president of Dickenson college. He was installed as pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mifflintown and Lost Creek in 1805, being the immediate successor of Rev. Matthew Brown, D. D., LL. D., who became distinguished in west- ern Pennsylvania as an educator, and served as president of Washington college, and later held the same position in Jefferson college. Rev. Mr. Hutchison remained in this charge until his death, November 10, 1844, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He married Sarah Waugh, of Adams county, this State, by whom he had a family of twelve children. They all died during minority except three daughters, who married and also died com- paratively young. Ile was an earnest and able preacher, a scholarly gentleman, and much beloved and revered by all who knew him. He made a lasting impression on his people and is yet kindly remembered. He prepared many young men for college, a
number of whom afterward distinguished themselves in western Pennsylvania.
In 1837 Mrs. Jane Mathers died, and James Mathers afterward united in mar- riage with Amelia Evans, a daughter of Gen. Lewis Evans, of Juniata county. By his second marriage he had a family of two sons and two daughters : Margaret, married Hon. Louis E. Atkinson, a member of the bar at Mifflintown, who is now serving his fifth term in the United States Congress as the representative of the Eighteenth Penn- sylvania district; Lonis E., deceased, who was for some time cashier of the Citizens' bank at Sidney, Ohio; Orlando O., now a resident of Juniata county ; and Isabella, who married W. D. Davis, a prominent lawyer of Sidney, Ohio, who has been the candidate of his party for election to Con- gress from his district, but was not elected, because the district is overwhelmingly dem- ocratic.
Rev. Joseph H. Mathers was graduated from the Jefferson college, at Cannonsburg, in 1850, and soon after entered Princeton Theological seminary, where he took a com- plete course in theology, being graduated from that famous institution in 1854. His first charge was in Richland county, Wis- consin, where he remained for a period of nine years. At the end of that time he re- turned to Pennsylvania and took charge of the Presbyterian church at McConnells- burg, Fulton county. After a successful pastorate at that place, covering nearly four years of active labor, he came, in 1868, to Blair county, and located at Bell's mills, now Bellwood. Here he has remained dur- ing a period of twenty-four years, earnestly engaged in dispensing the word of life and ministering to the spiritual needs of an ap- preciative community. His church was
M. A. Mackey
OF BLAIR COUNTY.
235
formerly outside the borough limits, but the congregation now owns a fine brick church and parsonage in Bellwood, and the church has a membership of one hundred and fifty. His greatest success, however, cannot be told in figures, nor represented by brick structures. Its record exists in the hearts and lives of the people he has helped toward a realization of their desire for higher ideals and purer living. In 1870 Rev. Mr. Mathers visited Palestine, and then and subsequently traveled through nearly all the countries of continental Europe.
Rev. Mr. Mathers has been twice mar- ried. He first wedded Sarah E. Jacobs, a daughter of George Jacobs, of Mifflintown, this State, by whom he had one child, a son named James, who was a graduate from Princeton college in the class of 1890, and is now engaged in the study of law with Hon. Aug. S. Landis, of the city of Hollidaysburg. After the death of Mrs. Mathers, in 1869, Rev. Mr. Mathers united in marriage, in April, 1888, with Elizabeth Clarke, a daughter of Dr. Rowan Clarke, a practicing physician of Tyrone, this county.
While always attentive to his ministerial duties, and wide-awake to the interests of his flock, Rev. Mr. Mathers is equally en- terprising in other directions, and takes an acfive interest in the secular affairs of his town and county. He is president of the Bellwood bank, recently organized, and is connected with the building and loan asso- ciations of Bellwood, and other public en- terprises of his locality. He is a democrat in' politics, but broad and liberal in his views. He is a well-known friend of popu- lar education, and has served as school director in Bellwood, and while in Wiscon- sin, served for two years as county superin- tendent of schools in Richland county.
M ARTIN H. MACKEY, of Altoona, is
one of that substantial class of men so indispensable to the prosperity of any city or county, who owe honorable standing and remarkable success in business to their own unaided efforts. He is a son of John and Annie (Heatherington ) Mackey, and was born at Milesburg, Centre county, Pennsyl- vania, March 17, 1832. His paternal grand- father, William Mackey, was a native of Scotland, and became one of the early set- tlers in Path valley, Franklin county. He and one of his brothers who had come with him to Franklin county served as soldiers in the American army during the war of 1812. He married, and his son, John Mackey (father), was born in 1802. He received such education as farmers' sons obtained during the first quarter of the present century. He learned the trade of carpenter, which he followed to some extent in Path valley until he was twenty-eight years of age (in 1830), when he removed to Centre county, where he remained until 1875. In that year he came to Altoona, where he lived a peaceful and retired life until his summons came to leave this earth, on August 17, 1886, when he was in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He was an old-line whig and republican in politics, and a regular attendant of the Presbyterian church. During the late war he enlisted in a regiment of Pennsylvania infantry, was taken prisoner at Gettysburg, and remained in the hands of the Confederates for three months before he was exchanged. Ile mar- ried Annie Flack, a native of Centre county, who died in 1846, aged thirty-three years. They reared a family of two sons and three daughters.
Martin H. Mackey grew to manhood in Centre county, and received his education
15
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
in the common schools of Pennsylvania. At the close of his school days he learned the trade of carpenter, which he has fol- lowed, to some extent, ever since. In 1856 he went to Milesburg, in his native county, where he was engaged in the planing mill and contracting and building business until 1862. In August of that year he enlisted for three years as a sergeant of Co. F, 148th Pennsylvania infantry. He participated in all the battles in which his regiment took part, and served until the close of the war, when he was honorably discharged. He returned home to again engage in peaceful pursuits, and followed the planing mill business and contracting and building until 1872, when he came to Altoona and en- gaged in the same lines of business and work, which he has successfully operated until the present time.
October 6, 1857, Mr. Mackey married Sarah Swanger, of Mifflin county, and they have seven children, five sons and two daughters: John A., Harry L., Leroy B., Willis E., Edmund M., Edith G., and Maud M.
M. H. Mackey is a strong republican, and has been serving for some time as a mem- ber of the school board of Altoona, and is a member of Fred C. Ward Post, No. 468, Grand Army of the Republic. He is a stockholder and director of the Fidelity bank, of this city, and has been for some time a stockholder in several other business enterprises.
His planing mill and lumber plant is the oldest of its kind in the city, and has been gradually enlarged and improved until it has few equals and no superiors in the county. Mr. Mackey has his works supplied with the best and latest of wood working machinery, and so large and
numerous are the orders that he constantly receives to fill, that he keeps a regular force of seventy-five men. Ile furnishes every- thing in the line of lumber supplies for building purposes, and has erected some of the finest buildings in the city of Altoona. His mills and yards are on Ninth avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. He keeps a large and carefully selected stock of all kinds of rough as well as all kinds of highly dressed lumber, besides sash, doors, windows, moulding, brackets, and every- thing else in the line of wood work -either useful or ornamental - used in the construc- tion or adornment of buildings. The pro- duct of his works make an important item in the sum of the city's business, while he has been recognized for several years as a leading representative of the lumber trade of the county. Mr. Mackey is pleasant and easily approached, but never allows any- thing to draw his attention from his busi- ness. Without wealth or capital he com- menced life, and by his energy and excellent management has secured a competency. He is a man of good judgment and clear business insight, as is attested by the exten- sive business he controls, and the marked success that has attended his different enterprises.
H IRAM H. PARKER, one of the many enterprising and active business men of the Mountain City, and a member of the well-known building and contracting firm of Kline, Parker & Co., is a son of Robert and Mary ( Robley ) Parker, and was born September 17, 1848, in Germaney valley, Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania. The Parker family traces its lineage back to England, from one of whose old and popular
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OF BLAIR COUNTY.
counties David Parker (grandfather) came to this country. Trace has been lost of where and when he first settled, beyond the fact of his being in Pennsylvania prior to the revolutionary war, as he was a soldier in the American army during that great struggle for independence. After he was mustered out of the Continental service he became a resident of Centre county, but soon removed to Huntingdon county, where he died. He married, and of the sons born to him in his Centre county home, one was Robert Parker, the father of the subject of this sketch. Robert Parker was born in 1813, and at an early age removed from Centre to Huntingdon county, where he resided until 1855, when he went to Mifflin county, in which he remained for eight years. At the end of that time, in 1863, he returned to Huntingdon county, where he has resided ever since. He has always been engaged in farming and stock-raising. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in politics has always been a stanch republican, yet not an extremist. He married Mary Robley, a native of New York, and a member of the United Brethren church, who passed away on August 19, 1880, when in the sixty-fifth year of her age. Mr. and Mrs. Parker were the parents of nine children, six sons and three daugh- ters.
Hiram H. Parker passed the larger part of his boyhood and youth in Huntingdon county, and received a good English educa- tion in the common schools. From the school room he went to the carpenter's bench, and has followed carpentering more or less ever since, in connection with other lines of business. In 1880 he came to Altoona, where he worked at his trade until 1882, when he and his brother, David E.,
under the firm name of Parker Bros., com- menced contracting, which they followed up to 1888. In that year they formed a part- nership with John G. Kline, under the firm name of Kline, Parker & Co., and in addition to contracting and building, the new firm also engaged in the planing mill business and the handling of sand and lime and other of builders' supplies. They give employ- ment to a large number of men, and have an extensive trade in each of their different lines of business. They have erected many houses, handle large quantities of builders' supplies, and own and operate a steam planing mill near Altoona, at Juniata, Penn- sylvania. Altoona is well entitled to special mention as a great center, in Pennsylvania, of builders' supplies, and among the many able and progressive firms of the city in that line of business, the firm of Kline, Parker & Co. are justly accorded a prominent place.
In 1873 Mr. Parker was wedded to Kate A., a daughter of Leonard Hostler, a resi- dent of Sinking Valley, this county. This union has been blessed with two children : Jesse R. and Harry L., who are both at home with their parents.
In politics Mr. Parker is a republican. He is a member of Castle No. 27, Knights of the Mystic Chain, and a member and ruling elder of the Church of God, of Al- toona, which he became connected with in 1862. He is a pleasant and agreeable gen- tleman, and has by his own will and energy made his life a success.
JAMES S. GILLAM, a member of the mercantile firm of J. S. Gillam & Co., of Tyrone, is one of the survivors of the famous 149th Pennsylvania Buektail regiment,
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
which was in the first corps, Army of the Potomac. IIe is a son of James and Eliza- beth (Stewart) Gillam, and was born at Me Alevy's Fort, Huntingdon county, Penn- sylvania, December 16, 1841. The Gillam family is of Scotch-English lineage, while the Stewarts are of Irish descent. James Gillam, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Maryland during the first year of the present century, and at eight years of age was brought by his father to Mill creek, Huntingdon county. From there he went, in 1820, to McAlevy's Fort, and thirty years later removed to the county seat, where he died in 1875. He was a farmer until 1846, when he engaged at Saulsburg, that county, in the general mer- cantile business, which he followed during the remaining years of his life. He was an old-line whig and republican in politics, and served for half a century as a class leader of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he was an earnest, active and enthusiastic worker. In 1825 he married Elizabeth Stewart, who died in 1879, at seventy-six years of age. They reared a family of seven children: Sarah J., who died at twenty years of age; Louisa Foster, now dead; Mary Hieter, deceased; William F., of Mapleton, this State, who enlisted in the 182d Pennsylvania infantry, was badly wounded in the right arm and lost his right forefinger by a shrapnel shell, at Cold Harbor, and was discharged on account of disability, at Findley hospital, Washington city, in September, 1864; Elizabeth Hess; and James S.
James S. Gillam received his education in the common schools and Martinsburg academy, which educational institution he left in 1862 to enlist as a private in Co. I, 149th Pennsylvania infantry, that was
known as one of the famous Bucktail regi- ments. He served in the Army of the Potomac, participated in fifteen battles and numerous skirmishes, and was honorably discharged at Elmira, New York, in June, 1865. He was in the thickest of the fight at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spottsylvania Courthouse, Petersburg, Weldon Railroad, and the two contests at Hatcher's Run. After returning from the army, Mr. Gillam was employed in the internal revenue ser- vice in Huntingdon county, and then em- barked in the general mercantile business in Clearfield county, where he remained until 1880, in which year he came to Tyrone. After remaining there for two years as a partner in the grocery business with J. C. Hoover & Co., he went to Bellefonte, this State, where he conducted a shoe store until 1891, when he returned to Tyrone, and since then has given his time to his whole- sale grocery, grain and flour business. He is the senior member of the present firm of J. S. Gillam & Co., whose establishment is located on K street. They have a large and remunerative wholesale grocery trade, and handle all kinds of grain and many leading brands of flour.
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