USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Biographical review : v. 24, containing life sketches of leading citizens of Pittsburgh and the vicinity, Pennsylvania > Part 48
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at the beginning of the Civil War, and served for three years.
The father afterward married Harriet Wat- son, who died in December, 1896. By this marriage there were eight children - Wesley, Allen, John, Olive, Laura, Ida, Clara, and Emma. Laura is the wife of Jesse Jones, of Norristown; Ida is the wife of Benjamin Rodgers, of Doylestown township; Clara is the wife of Gilbert Percy, of Furlong; and Emma is the wife of Franklin Henkle, of New Britain. The father died in 1894, at the age of eighty.
Charles Davis left home after the death of his mother; and from this time his boyhood was spent, for the most part, on a farm with his uncle. Later he worked at the carpenter trade, after having served a short apprentice- ship. He also attended the public schools of the neighborhood, and subsequently entered Jefferson College. On April 21, 1861, in the last session of his Junior year, he enlisted in Company D (Captain McDaniel's com- pany) of the Tenth Regiment of Infantry, Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps. On July 21, at Harrisburg, he was mustered with the regiment into the United States service by Lieutenant Colonel, afterward General, W. T. Sherman; and on the following day the regiment was sent to Washington, where it re- mained during that fall. The winter was spent in Langley, Va., to reach which they crossed the Potomac by the chain bridge. It was attached to one of the first brigades constituting the Army of the Potomac. Mr. Davis was in the seven days' battles of the Peninsular campaign, at Fredericksburg, South Mountain, Antietam, Bristoe Station, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Spottsylvania Court-house. In the last-named battle he was taken prisoner, and was on his way to Richmond, when, with about three hundred
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and seventy other prisoners, he was retaken by General Sheridan in his cavalry raid in the rear of Lee's army at Beaver Dam Station. The recaptured men were sent via Fortress Monroe to Alexandria, and thence to the front, reaching there in time to take part in the battle of Bethesda Church, near Cold Har- bor. Immediately after, the regiment was discharged, as its term of service had expired. Mr. Davis had risen from the rank of private to that of Orderly Sergeant before the seven days' fight. After that struggle he was pro- moted to Second Lieutenant. During the Wilderness campaign, which occurred in the last year of his service, during which cam- paign both the Captain and First Lieuten- ant were absent from the field on detached duty, Mr. Davis had command of the com- pany. At the close of the war he brought back the remnant of the company to Canons- burg, and the return was made the occasion of a banquet and speeches by prominent men, among whom was President Riddle of Jeffer- son College. He was discharged in June, 1864. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted First Lieutenant by President Johnson, and later he was made Brevet Captain for meritori- ous conduct.
After his discharge from the army Mr. Davis entered an engineer corps that was mak- ing surveys for a railroad in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. In 1866 he was offered and accepted a position on one of the lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad as assistant engineer under Antes Snyder, engineer in charge of the work, on a corps surveying the Western Penn- sylvania Railroad down the Allegheny valley, running to Allegheny. During the construc- tion of that branch he had charge, as resident engineer, of the division or section terminat- ing at Allegheny City. In 1867 he was elected City Engineer of Allegheny, which po-
sition he filled with ability and credit for some eight years. During his tenure of office the Allegheny Parks were laid out; and their beauty and excellent arrangement are largely due to the suggestions of Mr. Davis, who was deeply interested in the plan. It was at his suggestion that Messrs. Donald G. Mitchell and William H. Grant, the landscape gar- deners, were requested to submit a scheme for the laying out of the parks, the cost of con- structing which has been three hundred and eight thousand dollars. The superintending engineer of this work, Mr. Davis, designed all the fountains, except that in the north-eastern corner of the Common, near the residence of the late James Park, Jr. Also, by Mr. Davis's suggestion, a comprehensive sewerage system was adopted, and some thirty miles of sewers were built at a cost of seven hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars. About forty- eight miles of streets were graded and paved at a cost of more than one and a half million dollars in this period. The property registry system now in use in Allegheny and Pitts- burg was adopted in Allegheny under his advice, supported by the array of statistics in its favor that he presented to the City Coun- cil. While he was City Engineer, Mr. Davis was appointed consulting engineer for the Point Bridge Company, and had the general supervision of the construction of that bridge, Mr. P. F. Brendlinger being the resident en- gineer in charge.
In 1878 Mr. Davis made the preliminary surveys for the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Rail- road from Pittsburg to Youngstown, After the contract for the construction of this road was let, he was retained for a year as assistant engineer in the right-of-way department; and, while in the service of the company, he made the preliminary surveys for the Pittsburg, Mckeesport & Youghiogheny Railroad to
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Connellsville. In 1880 he was employed at Homestead as superintending engineer for the erection of their buildings by the Pittsburg Bessemer Steel Company, which was afterward absorbed by the Carnegie Steel Company. When the works were about completed, he took a position as engineer with the Mononga- hela Bridge Company, which was then en- gaged in replacing the old Smithfield Street suspension bridge with a new one. Though this company was bought out before the work was far advanced, and the plan of construction changed, Mr. Davis was retained for some time as assistant engineer and inspector of steel. In the latter part of 1881 he was elected County Engineer, which position he has held to the present time. Acting in con- junction with the architect, the late H. H. Richardson, he supervised the erection of the new court-house, for which he was instru- mental in securing the architect and the plans. The building is one of the finest of its kind in the country.
On May 28, 1868, Mr. Davis was united in marriage with Miss Annie V., daughter of James and Rebecca (Verner) Cooper. Mr. Cooper, an old resident of Pittsburg, was for many years in the wholesale grocery busi- ness on Liberty Street. Mrs. Davis died April 17, 1881. Before her marriage she was a member of the First United Presbyterian Church of Allegheny, of which Dr. Pressly was pastor; and at the time of her death she was a communicant of the Third Presbyterian Church in Pittsburg, of which her husband is also a member. Mr. and Mrs. Davis had five children, of whom Charles Wylie, Annie Hamilton, and Norman Cooper are living. Charles W. graduated from Western Univer- sity of Pennsylvania in the class of 1892. Subsequently he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, starting with the
third year of the course, having worked for a year after graduating from the University in the office of Julian Kennedy, a mechanical engineer. While in the institute his health failed, and he is now in California for recu- peration. The deceased children of Mr. Davis, Sr., were: one who died in infancy; and Re- becca Verner, who died of scarlet fever at the age of nine years, shortly after her mother's decease. In 1873, while Mr. Davis was City Engineer of Allegheny, he was ap- pointed by President Grant as United States Commissioner to the Vienna Exposition, and spent the summer of that year in Europe, visiting various points of interest. The com- mission was called the Practical Artisan Com- mission, and consisted of eight members. Mr. Davis is a member of Abe Patterson, Post No. 88, G. A. R .; of Encampment No. 1, Union Veteran Legion; of Mckinley Lodge, No. 318, F. & A. M. ; Allegheny Chapter of Royal Arch Masons; of Pennsylvania Com- mandery and Council; and of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a charter member and an ex-president of the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania; the treas- urer of the Academy of Science and Art of Pittsburg, of which he was one of the active organizers; and a member of the West Park Club of Allegheny. October 20, 1897, he was elected a member of the Loyal Legion of the United States. In politics he is a Repub- lican.
HEODORE ROBERT . MILLER, M. D.,* a leading physician of McKee's Rocks, where he has been in practice for ten years, was born in Pittsburg, on old Fourth Street Road on July 5, 1860, son of Robert and Julia A. (Lenning) Miller.
Robert Miller was born at Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, where his ancestors 1
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had settled on account of religious persecu- tion. He came to Pittsburg when about thirty years old, and here carried on shoemaking, having a large custom trade. He died March 4, 1869. . He always attended the First Pres- byterian Church. His wife, Julia, was a daughter of Richard Lenning, born in Bucks County, and was of Irish and German ances- try. Her paternal grandfather, Isaac Len- ning, was born in Bucks County, as was also her great-grandfather.
Richard Lenning moved to Westmoreland before 1812, and his children were born in that county near Greensburg. He enlisted in the War of 1812, but did not go into service, being prevented by typhoid fever. He died in Park township, at the age of one hundred and four years. His wife was Miss Drum, an aunt of ex-Mayor Simon Drum, of Pitts- burg. She died in 1888. Her two children were: Theodore R .; and Lizzie, wife of J. U. Purdy.
Theodore R. Miller received his early edu- cation in the Pittsburg Central High School and in the Western University of Pennsyl- vania. He subsequently worked for a year on railroad construction ; and in March, 1883, he went into the office of Dr. William Wallace as a student. He subsequently entered the medical department of the University of the City of New York; and, while pursuing his course in that institution, was in the office of J. C. Lange, M.D. Having received his de- gree in medicine from the University in 1886, he located for the practice of his profession on Fourth Avenue, and was in the Dispensary of the Western Pennsylvania Medical College for sixteen months in the department of heart and lungs. In the fall of 1887 he came to McKee's Rocks, where he has since been ac- tively engaged in his profession, building up a large practice and a reputation for unusual
skill. He is the surgeon for the Sholtz Bridge and Iron Company. In 1895 he built a fine residence at 75 Chartier Avenue. Dr. Miller is president of the Board of Health of McKee's Rocks, and is physician to the board. In politics he is a Democrat, but the demands of his profession leave him little time for taking part in political affairs.
On September 5, 1889, the Doctor was united in marriage with Miss Mary Robert- son, daughter of John Robertson, of Foxburg. Dr. and Mrs. Miller are members of the Mc- Kee's Rocks Methodist Episcopal Church, and are active workers in its numerous benev- olent and religious enterprises.
AMES WESLEY KINNEAR, M.A., an attorney-at-law at 906 and 907 Car- negie Building, Pittsburg, is one of the leading members of the legal fraternity of Allegheny County. He was born August 2, 1859, in Tidioute, Warren County, son of James and Jeannette (Parshall) Kinnear. The father, a native of this State, was born January 22, 1814, in Juniata County, son of William Kinnear, who was a pioneer of Venango County. Removing from Juniata County in the early part of the present cen- tury, William Kinnear bought from the chief of the Seneca Indians, Corn -planter, a tract of land now included within the limits of Oil City, and, settling in the midst of the un- broken wilderness, became one of the original founders of that region. He did much toward promoting the growth and advancement of the place, having been a man of energy and enter- prise. At the mouth of Oil Creek, the pres- ent site of the business part of the city, he built the first furnace of that locality. After operating this for many years, he sold out, and removed to Tidioute, where the greater
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number of his descendants are now living. Further information concerning the family will be found in the biography of James Kinnear.
James W. Kinnear passed creditably through the various grades of the public schools of his native village, entering the pri- mary class, and receiving his high-school di- ploma with the class of 1878. Four years later he graduated from Allegheny College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1885 he received the degree of Master of Arts from the same institution. Subsequently he registered as a law student with the firm of Brown & Stone, attorneys of Warren, Pa., spent a year in the law department of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and was admitted to practice at Warren in 1885. After spending two years in general practice, he came in 1887 to Pittsburg, where he has established an exceptionally fine business. He has an extensive civil practice in the various courts of the county and in the Su- perior Courts of the State. One of the recent cases tried by him was the suit against the Sterling Steel Company, which he took to the higher courts, and succeeded in having the de- cision of the lower courts reversed. He also took up the case of David Humphries, a blind man, v. the National Benefit Association of Indianapolis, Ind., and won a signal vic- tory, pressing the case through the Supreme Court, and causing the judgment of the lower court to be reversed.
During the labor strike in 1891 he tried an important suit for conspiracy against twelve of the leading lumber dealers of Alle- gheny County, comprising the Allegheny County Planing-mill Association, and ob- tained a verdict awarding twenty-five hundred dollars to his client. Although the result was afterward reversed by the Supreme Court,
it had the effect of dissolving the association. Mr. Kinnear is the attorney for the Firth-Ster- ling Steel Company, for the Dime Savings Bank, in which he holds an interest, and for the Life Protective Savings and Loan Asso- ciation of Pittsburg. While in college Mr. Kinnear was prominent. in literary circles, having been editor of the college paper and the winner of the oration prize of his graduat- ing year. He was a prominent member of the Phi Gamma Delta Society connected with his Alma Mater. In 1894 he was appointed a trustee of the college. He supports the Re- publican party in politics.
On May 12, 1886, Mr. Kinnear married Miss Edith M. Rich, daughter of John S. Rich, a well-known oil man of Oil City. He has two daughters - Jeannette and Esther. A prominent church member, he is a trustee and the Sunday-school superintendent of the Lincoln Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church of Pittsburg ; a member of the Executive Com- mittee of the Pittsburg Church Union; the president of the East End Sunday-school As- sociation, an organization including all de- nominations ; and a director of the Allegheny County Sunday-school Association. His good work and influence in the Sunday-school is recognized and appreciated by all interested in the moral education of young and old. He was a delegate to the International Sunday- school Convention held in Boston in 1896.
ILLIAM CONNER SHAW, M.D., a skilful physician of Pittsburg. was born in Versailles township, Allegheny County, son of William and Sarah Theresa (Conner) Shaw. The Shaws origi- nally came from Scotland.
Samuel Shaw, the first of them receiving special mention, was a Covenanter. His an-
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cestors, on account of persecution, left Scot- land for Ireland, settling in County Down about 1640. Again suffering persecution, in 1774, with his wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Lowrey, he came to America, and set- tled in Juniata County, Pennsylvania. Six children, five sons and a daughter, were born to Samuel and Sarah Shaw; namely, Samuel, Thomas, William, John, David, and Jane. Jane became the wife of John Gill, and was the first of the family to come to Western Pennsylvania from Juniata County. The others soon after sought homes farther West, Samuel, Thomas, and John locating in Ken- tucky, and David and William in Western Pennsylvania. Some years later Samuel went to Illinois, and Thomas and John settled near Sidney, Ohio.
David Shaw, the grandfather of Dr. Shaw, was married December 16, 1788, to Jane Aiken -- or Ekin, as she used it - who was living near Mckeesport, on the Samuel Foster place. In the following year her father, Samuel Aiken, bought from the Coul- ters what has since been known as the Aiken place, and removed thither. The property is still in the possession of the Aiken family. David Shaw and his wife settled on the large farm which was afterward divided between their sons, William and John, a portion of which is still in the family. It extended from Wilmerding to the Monongahela River. The house in which they began their married life is still standing, and occupied by a ten- ant. While they lived there, there were troubles with the Indians; and during those times they sought refuge in the old fort lo- cated in the forks of the river above McKees- port. In the Allegheny County records it is stated that the farm was purchased in 1788 by David and William Shaw for so many pounds, shillings, and pence, the balance to
be paid in instalments of whiskey. David Shaw became a member of the Associate Re- formed Presbyterian church, in which he was an Elder at his death, which occurred May 28, 1834, at the age of seventy-three years and seven days. Jane Shaw, his wife, died Au- gust 14, 1866, at the venerable age of one hundred and two years and twelve days. They were the parents of nine children, born as fol- lows: Samuel, October 23, 1789; Elizabeth, May 16, 1791; Robert, November 30, 1793; Sarah, March 7, 1796; Margaret, August 18, 1798; Thomas, January 10, 1800; David, July 9, 1803; John, February 6, 1806; and William, July 6, 1810. Samuel married Martha Henderson, who belonged to one of the first families of Pennsylvania; Elizabeth became the second wife of her cousin, Samuel Shaw; Sarah married Robert Carruthers, who was at one time a legislator; Margaret's hus- band, John Stewart, was the man Stewart's Station derives its name from; Thomas mar- ried Mary Aiken; David, Margaret Long; and John, Martha Cavitt.
William's wife, Sarah Theresa, the mother of Dr. Shaw, was a daughter of the Rev. William Conner. Her great-grandfather, John Conner, and three of his sons, were in the Revolutionary War, Cornelius, her grand- father, being one of the three. William came out of the army with the rank of Major, while the third son entered it as a recruiting Ser- geant. Different members of the family held public offices in Virginia in Colonial days. After the war Cornelius and one or two of his brothers settled in the neighborhood of Mount Gilead, Allegheny County. The Rev. Will- iam Conner, one of his sons, was a United Presbyterian minister. Mr. Conner began his ministerial career rather late in life, pre- paring for his work at Jefferson College. His last charge was at Blairsville and Cone-
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maugh; and he died in September, 1863, aged sixty-three years. He had eight children; namely, Cornelius, Thomas, Abijah, Joseph, Sarah Theresa, Eliza, Rebecca A., and Mar- garet J. William and Sarah Theresa Shaw had five sons and two daughters; namely, William Conner, Jennie Aiken, David Edwin, Samuel Julius, Margaret, John Irwin, and James Preastley. Jennie Aiken, deceased, was the wife of the Rev. John A. Wilson, a professor in the United Presbyterian Theolog- ical Seminary. The Rev. David Edwin Shaw, the pastor at West Nottingham Manse near Colora, Cecil County, Md., was previ- ously professor of Hebrew and church history in Lincoln University. He is a graduate of Princeton College, class of 1870, also of Allegheny United Presbyterian Theological Seminary, class of 1873; and at one time he held the pastorate of the United Presbyterian church, Keokuk, Ia. In addition to the above, he took a course in the Free Church Seminary of Edinburgh, Scotland; and while there he married Mary, daughter of the Rev. William Arnot. The Rev. Samuel Julius Shaw, the pastor of the United Presbyterian church in Braddock, who graduated at Prince- ton College, class of 1873, and at the United Presbyterian Seminary, class of 1876, and took a supplementary course in Edinburgh, married Maggie Robinson, of Braddock. Margaret, who was graduated from Vassar College in 1877, is the widow of J. C. Doty, a descendant of one of the "Mayflower " pil- grims. John Irwin is a legislator. James Preastley, a graduate of Princeton College and of the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, New York City, is engaged in medical work in Pittsburg.
brief vacation he was enrolled at Washington and Jefferson College, where he completed the course with the class of 1869; and in 1872 the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him. He next entered Bellevue Hospital Medical College, graduating in 1872. He then entered Bellevue Hospital, studying with Dr. Howe. In October, 1872, he was given the position of ambulance surgeon; and six months later he was assigned to the second surgical division, where he remained until he opened his office here in Pittsburg, October 1, 1874. From 1876 to 1882 he was physician to the Pittsburg Free Dispensary, and he was subsequently made a life member of that insti- tution. He was physician and surgeon to Mercy Hospital, which position he resigned in 1887. From 1877-82 he was surgeon of the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, & St. Louis Railroad, and from 1877-79 he was surgeon of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He is physician and obstetrician to Bethesda Home; chief medical examiner for the Equitable Life In- surance Society, as well as for other life and accident companies; and he has been the president of the Pittsburg Medical Library Association.
Dr. Shaw married Martha M. Lewis, daughter of J. C. Lewis, and grand-daughter of George Lewis, a Welshman, who built the first rolling-mill in Western Pennsylvania. Dr. and Mrs. Shaw had three children-Sarah Louise, James Lewis, and Jane Aiken. James Lewis is now deceased. Mrs. Shaw died on October 24, 1887. Mr. Shaw is a member of the United Presbyterian church.
OSEPH HOWLEY,* a rapidly rising young attorney-at-law and a prominent politician of Pittsburg, Allegheny
First attending the district school, William Conner Shaw in 1864 entered Newell Insti- tute, from which he duly graduated. After a | County, Pa., was born in Garrett, Somerset
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County, this State, June 29, 1870, a son of John C. Howley.
John C. Howley was born and bred in Dub- lin, Ireland, from whence he came with his parents to this country. Grandfather Howley settled in Paterson, N.J., where he and his sons engaged in railroad contracts. After his death his family removed to Altoona, Pa., where the three sons, Patrick, Martin, and John C., under the firm name of Howley Brothers, took the contract to build the tunnel at Gallitzin, Cambria County, for the Penn- sylvania Railroad. On its completion the firm removed to Pittsburg, where a few months later the partnership was dissolved. John C. Howley continued as a contractor, and, hav- ing charge of the construction of a portion of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway, removed to Garrett. On the completion of the road he returned to this city, and from that time until his demise was one of the leading contractors in Pittsburg. He did a good deal of work on the railways of this vicinity, and had charge of much of the grading and paving of the city streets, giving employment to hundreds of men. He married Miss Catherine Maley, of Pittsburg, and had seven children, four of whom grew to years of maturity, as follows: John E., secretary and treasurer of the Pitts- burg Provision Company; William E., senior member of the firm of W. E. Howley & Co., of. Pittsburg; Martin F., a resident of this city, employed in the United States Revenue service; and Joseph, the special subject of this sketch. The mother is still living, occupying with her sons her pleasant house at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Oakland Streets.
Joseph Howley, after his graduation from the Pittsburg High School, entered the Uni- versity of Michigan, from which he received his degree in 1888; and two years later he was graduated from the law department of that in-
stitution. He was immediately registered as a law student in the office of Pier & Blair, of Pittsburg, with whom he remained for a year and a half after his admission to the bar, in the latter part of the year 1890. Mr. Howley then began the practice of his profession by himself, continuing alone until April, 1896, when he became senior member of the law firm of Howley & Kent, the junior partner being Edward J. Kent. Their practice, which is extensive, is largely civil, although they have had several well-known criminal cases, notably that of James McMullen, who was ac- cused of murdering his wife, New Year's Eve, 1895, at Rice's Castle. The jury, after being out fifty-two hours, brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree. Mr. Howley argued it before the pardon board, who com- muted the sentence to life imprisonment, not- withstanding the earnest appeal of the district attorney to have the sentence sustained. Mr. Howley also defended in May, 1896, John Jenta, who was charged with killing a fellow- Italian at a dance near Carnegie, and suc- ceeded in getting a verdict of manslaughter. Since that time he has confined his attention almost entirely to civil cases, and besides hav- ing a large corporation practice is attorney for St. Francis Protectory for Boys.
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