USA > Pennsylvania > Lawrence County > Biographical sketches of leading citizens of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania > Part 27
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HERMAN E. MCMILLIN, M. D., is the leading physician of Mahoningtown, and as such enjoys the confidence and esteem of a large number of patrons in that borough and scat- tered about in the surrounding country. He is a native of Lawrence County, and was born in Wurtemberg, Wayne township, March 13, 1862; he is a son of William and Eleanor (McMillin) McMillin, and was third in order of birth in a family of eleven children. William McMillin was born in Big Meadows, this county, April 14, 1825, and died March 25, 1895, after a well-spent life in the pursuits of agriculture. He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church, and in his political views was first a Whig and then a Republican. His parents were Edward and Nancy (Lamont) McMillin, both of Scotch par- entage. Edward McMillin, who was born in Westmoreland County, Pa., and followed farm- ing throughout the active period of his life, died in 1830 at the age of fifty years; he was a mem-
Dr. McMillin attended the district schools in the vicinity of his father's farm near Wampum until he was sixteen years of age, when he went to Rock Island, Ill., and worked two years in a lumber mill. On his return, he attended Grove City College in Mercer County for four years, and then for the next six years was engaged in teaching school. During this period, having already fixed his aim on the medical profession, he was preparing himself by judicious reading to prosecute with credit his studies in that chosen field. He then attended the Western Re- serve of Cleveland, Ohio, for a year and the University of Wooster, Ohio, and graduated on March 26, 1891, from the Medical College of Western Pennsylvania. In the following month he came to Mahoningtown, and located and opened an office, where he has since been en- gaged in the successful practice of his profes- sion. Our subject has met with the most flatter- ing recognition of his ability and worth during
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his short residence in Mahoningtown, and has won golden opinions from all fair-minded men for his honorable and professional method of treating all applications for his skilled assistance. His practice has grown phenomenally, and with- in the first six months after locating, he could well lay claim to the largest practice in the bor- ough, and this practice is still growing and ex- tending its bounds.
Politically, Dr. McMillin has always associa- ted himself with the Republican party, and has served two terms on the school board. Socially, he is a member of Amazon Lodge, No. 336, Knights of Pythias, of Mahoningtown; and of the Lodge of the Craft, No. 433, F. & A. M., of New Castle.
The publishers of this volume take great pleasure in presenting Dr. McMillin's portrait on a preceding page, in connection with the fore- going biographical sketch.
ARCHIE REED, the assistant yardmaster on the Beaver Valley Division of the Pennsylvania R. R. at New Castle, was born in Allegheny Co., Pa., June 21, 1833. Archibald Reed, Sr., Mr. Reed's father, married a Miss Whittaker, but as her death occurred when our subject was only four years old, he remembers very little of her. Archibald Reed, Sr., was probably born in Alle- gheny Co., Pa., and that remained his home and continued to be the scene of his agricultural labors until about the year 1867, when he moved to Newport, where he lived some sixteen or eighteen years, his death occurring in Mahon- ingtown, as a result of a railway accident.
Of nine children in the parental family, Archie was third; he remained under the parental roof until he attained his majority, and attended the district schools until he was eighteen in Enon Valley, whither his father had moved when our subject was five years old. When a youth he learned the blacksmith's trade in his brother's shop, and labored one year at the forge; then after eighteen months on the farm he left for the West, working eight months at his trade in Ma- haska and Poweshiek Counties, Iowa, then re- turning at the expiration of that period to Penn- sylvania, where he worked for a time at his trade at Wampum Furnace and at Homewood Fur- nace for three years, and at Homewood Station something over three years. At this stage in his life begins his connection with the railroad service; after braking two years and six months, he became a conductor, and for twenty-five years held that position, and to-day he is prob- ably the oldest railroad man on the rolls. Since 1890, he has not done active service as a con- ductor, but has served efficiently as the assistant yard-master on the Beaver Falls Division of the Pennsylvania R. R.
Mr. Reed was married, Nov. 16, 1858, in Mer- cer County, to Sarilla Swoger, daughter of James and Margaret (Miller) Swoger; Mrs. Reed during her life was a member of the First Presbyterian Church; her death took place at the family residence in New Castle, Aug. 6, 1891. The fruits of our subject's marriage were three children as follows: Ida, who married Oliver Irvin, a passenger conductor on the Pennsylvania Co.'s lines, and has borne hint one child, Charles; Adaline, deceased; and Carrie, the wife of Thomas Johns, a heater in the tin
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mill. Mr. Reed makes his home with his young- est daughter and her husband. He was form- erly a member of the Senior Order of American Mechanics during the life of that organization. Politically, he is a stanch and loyal supporter of the silver wing of the Democratic party.
JOHN SMITH TAGGART, deceased, who was one of New Castle's highly honored citi- zens, enjoying the full and unlimited confidence and respect of his fellow-citizens, belonged to that selected company of American citizens who can claim the title of self-made, having arisen from an humble station in life to his eminent position in the world of commercial activity purely by his own exertions. His death, which occurred on the thirtieth of December, 1896, was a serious loss not only to his family, but also to all of New Castle's citizens, and espe- cially to the rising generation, to whom he of- fered the example of a life nobly spent, worthy of the highest admiration. He was born in Bel- mont Co., Ohio, in 1830, and was a son of Jos- eph and Jane (Smith) Taggart.
Joseph Taggart was of Scotch-Irish descent. With his three brothers, James, William, and Isaac, all of them older than he, he came to. this country. They were not entirely without means, for their father, and their ancestors far removed, had been well-to-do farmers of the north of Ire- land; with their capital the four brothers bought four hundred acres of land near St. Clairsville, Ohio, and proceeded to clear the land of the timber, build homes, and apportion the property
amongst them. The same land is owned to-day by their several descendants. Joseph Taggart died at about fifty-five years of age; his wife was not over forty years old when she was called to her long home to receive the reward of a virtu- ous life, replete with good deeds. Their chil- dren were: Sarah; Dorothy; Margaret; and John Smith, the subject of this biographical sketch.
John S. Taggart came to New Castle in 1853 as clerk for Pollard McCormick, and was for many years his chief clerk, trusted and honored with the supervision of many important details of the business. For many years he was with Paul Graff & Co., wholesale shoe dealers. He then entered into the oil business in Tennessee, and later in Venango Co., Pa .; he was also in the retail shoe business with his son, Samuel J., under the firm name of J. S. Taggart & Son. In 1878, our subject sold his interest in the shoe business, and went to Beaver County, where he was engaged in the oil busines until 1881, when he opened up an office in New Castle to deal in real estate, and represent some of the best and most reliable insurance companies. His health had gradually failed for some years, and when rheumatism set in, his enfeebled constitution could not stand the strain, and he reluctantly prepared to leave the busy world and his loved wife and children, and obey the final summons. The end came suddenly, acute rheumatism seiz- ing the heart, and paralyzing its action, thus preventing it from performing its necessary functions, and causing death. He had just com- pleted a modern house, fitted up in the most at- tractive manner, on Grant Avenue, where he leaves a widow and children to mourn the great
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loss that has come to them. His death occurred on the forty-fifth anniversary of his wedding with Nancy J. Hamilton, daughter of Samuel and Arabella (Scroggs) Hamilton, and grand- daughter of Thomas and Nancy (Mitchell) Hamilton. Mrs. Taggart's grandfather, Thomas Hamilton, was born in Belfast, Ireland, his wife's birth-place also being in Ireland. Upon his arrival in the great Republic, he took up his Church, and often acted as trustee.
residence near Brush Run, Beaver Co., Pa., where he farmed the remainder of his life, dying at an age exceeding seventy years. His wife lived to be over ninety years old. The following children were born to them: John; Thomas; Milo; Mitchell; George; Samuel; Elmira; and Jane. Samuel Hamilton was born on the home- stead in Beaver Co., Pa., and early in life was a harness and saddle-maker. He was a spirited, active man in politics, and being blessed with a good education, he devoted much of his later life in the service of the town, serving as justice of the peace, as representative to the State Leg- islature, and as county commissioner. He died at the age of sixty-eight; his wife filled out twenty more years, and was eighty-eight years old when she fell into that last sleep. Their children were: Isabelle; Thomas J .; Samuel; Alexander; Nancy J., the wife of our subject ; Margaret; Mary; Louise; and James. Three children are still living, Nancy J., Mary, and Louise.
To our subject and his esteemed wife were born the following children: Samuel J., who died at the age of thirty-seven; Arabella Jane, the wife of A. C. Jones; Dorothy Elizabeth, the wife of T. F. Morehead; John C., an accountant in the office of the Whiterow Co .; and Charles P.
secretary of the Rock Point Coal Co., and book- keeper of the Rosena Furnace. Mr. Taggart was a decided Republican, and served as city councilman, and as a member of the school board, holding a place in the latter organization for twenty-five years, sixteen years of which period being spent as secretary of the board. He was a leader in the United Presbyterian
CONRAD CLINE, deceased, an ex-soldier of the late war, was born in Richland Co., Ohio, Oct. 19, 1823, and was a son of Henry and Bar- bara (Book) Cline, natives of Essex Co., N. J., and Washington Co., Pa., respectively.
The father of our subject was a farmer by occupation, and spent his whole life on the farm, engaged in agricultural labors; he was very suc- cessful in his chosen occupation, and was consid- ered to be one of the leading men of his neigh- borhood. His wife, Barbara, a daughter of Jacob Book of the State of Pennsylvania, bore him the following six children: Mary; Jacob; Eliza; Maria; Conrad, the subject of this sketch; and Sarah. Henry Cline departed this life Sept. 15, 1866, his death following that of his wife by some three years, her death having occurred Dec. 31, 1863.
Conrad Cline early in life learned the trade of a plasterer, and worked at the trade a number of years, relinquishing it at last to engage in shoe- making, an occupation he followed until his en- listment in 1863 in the United States service, in which he remained until the close of the war that decided that the South had espoused a "lost
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cause." He was firm in his allegiance to the political principles and dogmas of the Republi- can party. In the matter of his religious pref- erences, he was a member of the United Presby- terian Church.
On Dec. 16, 1847, he was joined at the altar of Hymen with Mary Harbison, daughter of Will- iam Harbison of New Castle, Pa., and by their union they became the proud parents of three children: Margaret E., deceased; Sarah J., de- ceased; and Eliza A., who married John C. Houk of Shenango township, and presented him with nine children: Jennie E .; Margaret A .; Mary A .; Sarah E .; Edith; Conrad C .; Samuel R .; Edna; and Hazel. Our subject's first wife died Oct. 25, 1865. He afterwards formed a second union with Nancy Burton, Jan. 3, 1867. Mr. Cline departed this life Jan. 20, 1892, mourned by many friends and the best citizens of New Castle, for he had firmly established himself in their regard as a man of strict integrity, and dis- posed to many kindly actions.
ELIJAH GAD MATHENY, one of Ellwood City's oldest citizens, and in fact one of Law- rence County's oldest native-born residents, now living in retirement on his farm in the city, was born near the county line in Wayne township on the Weller farm, March 31, 1821.
His grandfather, Joseph Matheny, was born in Germany of a High Dutch family. When a young man, he came to this country with his brother, and settled in Shenandoah, West Vir- ginia, where he carried on farming, and served
as judge of the court. When past middle age, he removed to Wayne Co., Ohio, near Wooster, and bought a large farm, where his death took place in 1837. His wife also lived to a good old age, their hardy ancestry telling in their survival of the frosts of many winters. Their children were: John, Absalom, George, Moses, Israel, who was drowned on the Monongahela; Isaac, Aaron, Rachel, and Mahala.
Moses Matheny, our subject's father, was born while the family had its residence in Shenan- doah, and while a youth learned the cabinet- maker's trade. In 1806, he married Hannah Nye, daughter of Andrew and Rachel Nye of Wayne township, Lawrence County, and removed to a farm, which he bought near the old Nye home- stead. In 1817, he sold this property, and bought a farm near Wooster, Ohio, where he lived a few years, and then came back to Penn- sylvania, where he bought a farm in Wayne township, where the subject of this notice was born. This farm had been but slightly im- proved, so for a number of years his labors were directed toward the removing of the forest growth and preparing the soil for cultivation; in this he was assisted by his sons; his trade of cabinet-making also proved very useful to him in this work, for he would exchange the furni- ture he made with his neighbors for work in the clearing. In company with Judge Hemphill in 1820, Mr. Matheny bought three hundred acres of land on the present site of the village of Wurtemberg. There was a great scarcity of salt in this section of the country, and what there was had to be carted for hundreds of miles and thus was very expensive, so these two gentle- men bored a salt well 586 feet in depth, and
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found a small amount of salt water to reward their efforts-the water only furnishing enough saline matter to make one barrel of salt in twelve hours; very large profits were not realized from this venture, for salt was worth about $4 a bar- rel, and the work of drilling was done at great expense and hard work with a spring pole. This was the only salt found in many miles, and con- sequently cattle strayed thither from far and near to lick the ground, and wild game abound- ed in the vicinity. Mr. Matheny was interested in this business for fifteen years, and then built a mill in Slippery Rock township, near Wurtem- berg, which he finally traded for the farm our subject owns. Mrs. Matheny was past sixty- five when she passed over to the far country, and Mr. Matheny was sixty years of age, when his death occurred in 1845. They reared the follow- ing children: Joseph, Nancy, Aaron, Rachel, Elizabeth, George, Mahala, Elijah Gad, Aman- da, James Parker, Hannah, Moses, and John Deemer. They all grew to be strong and vigor- ous men and women, although at the present time but four survive-Elizabeth, Elijah Gad, James Parker, and John Deemer. The father of our subject was a Whig in his political alle- giance, and in religious matters favored the M. E. Church. He was the first man in the United States that struck oil in a well in 1828, there being another man in Kentucky who struck oil in 1829.
Elijah Gad Matheny had few educational ad- vantages, as the great system of public schools was then still in embryo and did not materialize until he was a man grown. When he was sev- enteen years old, his father died and left a bur- den on our subject's young shoulders to help
carry on the farm, and care for the others of the household. He stayed with his mother until her death, and he owns the homestead, which is managed by his son, Jerdon Nye Matheny.
Mr. Matheny became the husband of Sarah Ann Nye on Feb. 12, 1846. She was born June 24, 1824, and was a daughter of Col. Jerdon M. and Hannah (Plantz) Nye. Col. Nye was born on Peter Creek, twelve miles from Pittsburg; he settled in Wayne township, where he carried on farming and stock-raising, inheriting the 130 acres from his father's estate, which later passed into the possession of our subject through his wife. Col. Nye was a colonel in the State mili- tia, and served as justice of the peace twenty- four years.
Elijah Gad Matheny, whose history is given herein, lived on his own farm until 1874, when he removed to the farm referred to above, that belongs to Mrs. Matheny, and ran the old Mat- heny mill on the creek. He built a comfortable farm-house in 1883, and was engaged in the various industries of farm life until he sold his land to the Pittsburg Manufacturing Co., re- taining ten acres as a homestead, and retired to enjoy the sunset years of his life. Mr. Matheny has always been a Republican until the last few years, when he transferred his allegiance to the Prohibitionists. He is overseer of the poor in Ellwood City, and has served as justice of the peace. Mr. and Mrs. Matheny are Presbyterians in their religious faith. Their children are: Cal- ista Isaphenia, born Nov. 12, 1846, who lives at home; Lizzie Jane, who died at the age of eigh- teen months; Albert T., who also passed away when twenty-one years old; Alice Arzina, born Nov. 5, 1852, who married Francis M. Davis, a
BAZZELLEEL PITZER.
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prominent farmer and fruitdealer, and has these children-Alice A., Nellie E., Charles S., Nancy, Elijah G., and Alma; Alma Diadema, born Dec. 25, 1854, lives at home; Jerdon Nye, born June 18, 1857, married Anna M. Gillespie, and they have been blessed with two children-Alice A., and Joseph G .; Sherman Marshall, a flourish- ing dentist of New Castle, born July 22, 1862, married Nettie Grove. Mr. and Mrs. Matheny show forth in their daily lives the beauty of the teachings of the Gospel. They have, as they de- serve, the good will and cordial friendship of the entire community in which they live, and their record through life is one of which their chil- dren may well be proud.
BAZZELLEEL PITZER, a wealthy and representative farmer of Taylor township, en- gaged in carrying on his chosen occupation at East Moravia, was born at Lawrence Junction, July 31, 1826. His parents were Michael and Elizabeth (Cameron) Pitzer; the latter was born in Pittsburg, a daughter of Allan and Elizabeth (Corman) Cameron; Allan Cameron was a native of Scotland, but immigrated to the col- onies prior to the Revolutionary War, and when injustice and oppression culminated in war, he espoused the cause of the patriots, and fought nobly throughout the struggle. Our subject's father was a native of Virginia, where he was born in 1802; his death took place in Dickinson County, Tenn., in 1881. He was very handy and expert with all manner of tools, and was the master of three different trades-coopering, shoemaking, and carpentering. He was frugal
and industrious in his habits, and accumulated considerable property; with the increase in his fortune, he conceived the idea of making his home in a new country where land was plentier than where he had resided, and where he could gather all his children and their families about him. So in 1868, he removed to Dickinson County, Tenn., where he purchased 530 acres of land near Charlotte; many of his children went with him, but some of them, among whom was our subject, returned to Pennsylvania after his death. Michael Pitzer was a son of Michael Pit- zer, Sr., a native of Germany, who followed farming in the State of Virginia after coming to America, and died about 1835 or 1840, aged eighty-two years.
The subject of this biography was reared in Lawrence County, and was a pupil in the sub- scription schools until the age of sixteen, when he began boating on the canal as tow-boy, and followed this life on the canal for five years. He then began farming, and also ran a threshing machine for a period of twenty-one years. His first landed possession was a ten-acre tract on the old Pittsburg road near Pumpkinton, where he resided ten years, and then moved to a sixty- acre farm on Snake Run farther south in Shen- ango township, which he occupied ten years, engaged in farming and in operating his thresh- ing machine, in the meantime disposing of his original ten-acre tract. In 1869, he sold his farm, and bought 100 acres near Moravia, where he still resides as one of the prominent and leading agriculturists of his section.
Mr. Pitzer was joined in the bonds of matri- mony in Shenango township, Dec. 26, 1849, to Margaret Reed, a daughter of William and
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Anna ( Cannon) Reed. Mrs. Pitzer's mother who was born in Mahoningtown, Feb. 10, 1805, still survives, and in her ninety-third year is clear and vigorous in mind, and reasonably strong and active in body for one of her age; she makes her home with her granddaughter, Mrs. J. W. Miller, in New Castle. She was a daughter of James and Betsey (Hendrickson) Cannon. James Cannon, a farmer by occupation, and son of James Cannon, Sr., was born at Shirley's Landing, Pa., and died in Shenango township, near Center Church, at the age of sixty-six. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Cornelius Hendrick- son, who was the first physician to practice in Lawrence County, coming to this county in 1797, when the Indians were plentiful, with two other families, who were among the first people to settle in what was then almost a trackless wilderness. Betsey, his daughter, was severely frightened by one of the red savages when driv- ing home the cows one evening, and it was deemed so very unsafe after that, that she was never sent again, the work being then performed by one of the men of the household. The Doctor served through the Revolutionary War. He retained his vigor to an extreme old age, and when ninety-five years of age rode six miles on horse-back to set a broken leg. William Reed, the father of Mrs. Pitzer, was born near Zanes- ville, Ohio, in the month of June, 1803, and learned the wheelwright's trade at Zelienople, Pa. He came to New Castle and bought a farm in 1829, where he worked at his trade and fol- lowed agricultural pursuits until his death at the age of forty. He was a son of John and Mar- garet (Lutton) Reed; the latter was a daughter of Ralph Lutton, who married a Miss Martin,
and she lived to be ninety-two years old. John Reed, whose father, Michael Reed, died in Ire- land, was born in the Emerald Isle, and immi- grated to America, settling first in Ohio, and coming to Lawrence County in 1806, where he purchased a farm in the southern part of Shen- ango township on Snake Run, where he died at the age of forty.
Seven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Pitzer, as follows: Della C., now deceased, who married Edward Frisbee of Shenango township, and bore him six children-Mary, Daisy B., Effie, Roy, Edward, and Harriet; Jennie H., who married Milton Crider of Free- dom, Pa., and has seven children-Eva, the wife of Albert Mills, and the mother of one child, William DeForest-William H., B. Anna, Amanda, Bessie, Milton A., and Ira; William C., who lives on his farm in Big Beaver township, surrounded with a family of seven children- Anna M., Elizabeth, Ellen, Mary, James, Josie B., and Jennie; David A., living in Big Beaver township, was the second postmaster at East Moravia, holding office ten years from the estab- lishment of the office in 1881-he has five chil- dren, Mary M., Lea, Earl, Audley, and Gertrude; Anna M., who married James A. Lindsay of Lowellville, Ohio, and has borne him five chil- dren-Robert Audley, Anna M., James A., Edith, and Jennie B .; Bessie, who was assistant postmaster many years with her brother, and is now the wife of Nicholas J. Hall of Mckeesport, Pa., and the mother of one child, John Nicholas; and George Francis, who lives at Freedom, Pa., and has one child, Grace. Mrs. Pitzer, an excel- lent lady of wide acquaintance and deservedly popular among her friends, is an active member
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of the United Presbyterian Church. Mr. Pitzer The grandfather came from Washington Co., is a Republican in his politics, and has served as Pa., into North Beaver township, this county, and was one of the very first of that hardy band of settlers who cast their lot in the new country. He took up 400 acres of land, sallied into the timber with ready axe, and soon a log-cabin marked the home acre. Year succeeding year marked an increase in the acreage cleared and put under cultivation, so that when he complet- ed his life's span, he died possessed of a fine property, the reward of a life of toil and hard- ship. Michael Book died at the age of seventy- two, and his good wife, who had accompanied him through trials and tribulations to prosper- ity, attained the age of sixty-four. Seven chil- dren were reared by this worthy couple to noble manhood and womanhood; they were: Peggy, Eliza, John, Sally, Mary, Susie, and Jacob. Both Michael Book and his wife were devout Chris- tian people, and were members of the United Presbyterian Church.
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