USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > Cambria County pioneers; a collection of brief biographical and other sketches relating to the early history of Cambria County, Pennsylvania > Part 10
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While living in Bedford Alexander attended the Bed- ford Academy. After the family removed to the farm, in 1836, it was the good fortune of Alexander to be sent to several excellent subscription schools in the neighborhood. Alexander's mathematical studies extended to trigonometry and other branches connected with surveying. Attending school in both summer and winter, and being favored with good teachers, he made rapid progress. He also wrote ver- ses, learned to sketch, and joined a country debating society. When a little more than seventeen years old he taught school for two months in Londonderry valley.
In May, 1848, Alexander left home to become a clerk in
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the store of his bachelor uncle, David Hammer, at Holli- daysburg, Blair county. It may be incidentally mentioned here that Joseph Hammer, another uncle, was for several years, from about 1849 to 1852, the landlord of Bennett's Hotel, at Johnstown, for whom and for his excellent family the old citizens of the town cherish most pleasant recollec- tions. Alexander's engagement with his uncle did not, how- ever, long continue, for, after four months' experience in his store, and when just eighteen years old, we find him, in September, taking charge of the lumber interests of Robert Lytle at Wilmore, in Cambria county, who also kept a store at the same place, in which William C. Barbour was a clerk. Robert Lytle was a resident of Hollidaysburg. In April, 1849, Alexander was offered by George Murray a clerkship in his store at Summerhill, in Cambria county, which offer was accepted, and in the latter part of the month he entered upon his new duties. The situation proved to be a pleasant one, and for three years it was filled by Alexander with great satisfaction to his employer.
At Summerhill Alexander continued in his leisure hours the study of mathematics and Latin, being greatly aided by an educated Irish shoemaker named George G. Higgins, who had spent many years of his life on the ocean. Hav- ing thus obtained a part of that additional education he had longed for when he left home, and having acquired considerable business experience, he resolved to study law, and accordingly, in November, 1851, he entered his name as a student with Edward Hutchinson, Jr., a prominent member of the Ebensburg bar. He began immediately the usual course of legal studies, and from this time on until May, 1852, while still remaining at Summerhill, his time was about equally divided between these studies and the settlement of Mr. Murray's business, which had for a num- ber of years been very extensive. At the time last named above Alexander, then familiarly known as " Aleck," but. whom I shall hereafter call Mr. Mullin, went to Ebensburg, with the double purpose of prosecuting his legal studies under the direction of Mr. Hutchinson and acting as clerk to the prothonotary of the county, Robert L. Johnston, who had solicited his assistance in rearranging all the records of
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the office since the organization of the county in 1807. Mr. Mullin's skill as an accountant and bookkeeper and the elegance and neatness of his penmanship had by this time become generally known throughout Cambria county, and Mr. Johnston's choice of him as an assistant was therefore wisely made and proved to be very popular. At that day the duties of the prothonotary's office embraced the record- ing of deeds and also the registering of wills. Mr. Mullin remained with Mr. Johnston until the close of the latter's term of office in the fall of 1854, when they entered into partnership, the style of the firm being Johnston & Mullin. This partnership continued for five years.
On the 27th day of October, 1852, Mr. Mullin was mar- ried at Williamsburg by Rev. John Thrush to Miss Emma Matilda Kennedy, a native of Perry county, Pennsylvania, but at the time a resident of Rockdale, Blair county.
In August, 1853, the want of a Whig newspaper at Ebensburg having long been felt, Mr. Mullin and a friend of about his own age, named Charles Albright, since well known to fame as a lawyer, soldier, and politician, but then a student in the law office of Mr. Johnston, were induced, under the firm name of Mullin & Albright, to establish The Alleghanian. The paper was a weekly, of six columns, well printed, and from the first was well edited. Coming into existence during a heated canvass for a seat in the State Senate from the district composed of Cambria, Blair, and Huntingdon counties The Alleghanian took decided ground against the candidacy of Alexander M. White, of Cambria county, who had secured the nomination by the Whig sena- torial conference. So vigorous was its opposition that Mr. White was defeated by the Democratic nominee, John Cres- well, Jr., of Hollidaysburg, although the district, by convic- tion, belonged to the Whigs. The bitterness of the contest was carried into the courts, where legal proceedings were inaugurated, but nothing of moment came of them. The course of The Alleghanian in this matter was generally jus- tified by the leading Whigs of the district. The connection of Mullin & Albright with the paper was continued until 1854, when they were succeeded in its publication by J. R. Durburrow and he soon afterwards by John M. Bowman.
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At December term, 1853, of the Cambria county courts. Mr. Mullin was admitted to the bar, on motion of Michael Dan Magehan, with whom had been associated Henry D. Foster and James Potts on the committee of examination. Hon. George Taylor, president judge, and Hon. Evan Rob- erts and Hon. Harrison Kinkead, associates, were on the bench. The bar of Cambria county in 1853 was one of great native and reflected ability. Of the resident members I can remember Edward Hutchinson, Jr., Robert L. Johns- ton, Charles H. Heyer, John S. Rhey, Michael Dan Mage- han, Joseph McDonald, Michael Hasson, John Fenlon, Cyrus L. Pershing, James Potts, Abram Kopelin, Theophilus L. Heyer, Moses Canan, William Kittell, Samuel C. Wingard, Charles W. Wingard, George M. Reade, John F. Barnes, and Charles D. Murray-not all good lawyers, it is true, but as a. body they formed the best bar the county could ever boast. Of visiting lawyers from neighboring counties there were John G. Miles and John Scott, of Huntingdon ; S. S. Blair and David H. Hofius, of Blair ; Thomas White, of Indiana ; and Henry D. Foster, Edgar Cowan, and Wm. A. Stokes, of Westmoreland. These men were all able lawyers. The bench was more than respectable. Judge Taylor was one of the ablest judges in the State and the associates were men of high social standing and good judgment. Mr. Mullin came to the bar under most favorable circumstances.
Mr. Mullin had a strong inclination to engage in the excitements and to enjoy some of the rewards of political life. Thus we find him in 1855 the candidate of the new American party for treasurer of Cambria county, but he was beaten, in a contest hopeless from the beginning, by Charles D. Murray, Democrat. In 1856 he was the Union Republican candidate for the State Senate in the Cambria, Blair, and Huntingdon district, but was defeated by John Creswell, Jr., of Blair, although running ahead of his ticket in his own county. In 1857 he was selected by the unani- mous vote of the judges of the Cambria, Blair, and Hunting- don judicial district as a member of the State board of rev- enue revision. In this position he so skillfully protected the interests of his constituents that a proposition to increase their taxes, made by Hendrick B. Wright, a member of the
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board, and supported by others, was so amended as to effect an actual lowering of them. In 1859 he re-estab- lished The Alleghanian, the publication of which had been discontinued some time previously, and at once made it a vigorous exponent of Republican principles. He owned the paper and was its editor, but its publication was intrusted to two young men whose firm name was Bolsinger & Hutch- inson. In a brief time this firm was dissolved, and J. Todd Hutchinson continued the publication of the paper, with Mr. Mullin as owner and editor. Mr. Mullin's connection with The Alleghanian continued until 1861, when he sold it to A. A. Barker, who retained Mr. Hutchinson as publisher.
In the fall of 1860 Mr. Mullin was chosen a Represent- ative from Cambria county to the Pennsylvania Legisla- ture. The contest in which he was the successful candidate was a quadrangular one-George Nelson Smith representing the Douglas Democrats, Michael Dan Magehan the Breckin- ridge Democrats, James Potts the advocates of a new county, and Mr. Mullin the Union Republicans. The plurality of Mr. Mullin over his highest opponent, Major Smith, was a little less than 300.
The Legislature met on the 1st of January, 1861, and Mr. Mullin was present. Upon the organization of the House he was assigned to the committee on ways and means and to the committee on new counties and county seats. The assignment to the first of these committees would have conveyed a very high compliment under or- dinary legislative circumstances, but a contingency soon to happen, and dreaded when the session opened, made the po- sition one of great responsibility and importance. We were drifting into a war with the Southern States, and the atti- tude which Pennsylvania should take in the struggle, and the strength and resolution with which she should maintain that attitude, largely depended upon the ways and means committee of the House of Representatives. During the regular session, and the special session which soon followed it, Mr. Mullin supported every measure of legislation that was designed to sustain the power of the Federal Govern- ment, including the bill to borrow money and the bill to organize and equip the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. He
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had no patience with the Peace Conference or with any other temporizing expedient.
As a legislator Mr. Mullin paid strict attention to the interests of his constituents. Of the bills which were con- sidered during the session eighteen were passed through his instrumentality. Some of the bills that were introduced and passed by Mr. Mullin were of considerable local im- portance. One of these gave greatly needed relief to the Cambria Iron Company and enabled the lessees, Messrs. Wood, Morrell & Co., to continue the works in operation during many months which would otherwise have been lost to them and their workmen.
After the adjournment of the Legislature in the spring of 1861 Mr. Mullin continued the practice of his profession until September, 1862, when he was appointed private sec- retary to Governor Curtin. He never again regularly prac- ticed his profession. Retaining his home at Ebensburg he immediately assumed at Harrisburg the most arduous and responsible duties of his life. A great war was in progress and the State of Pennsylvania took no insignificant part in the contest. The duties of the Governor were increased many fold, and to aid him in the performance of his diffi- cult task the service of the best executive and administra- tive talent of the State was called into requisition. The choice of a private secretary could not have been more hap- pily made than in the selection of Mr. Mullin. He remained with the Governor until after the close of the war, during part of the time assisting to discharge the duties of master of transportation in addition to those of private secretary.
It is a pleasure to me to record here an incident which illustrates the friendly personal relations which have always in a large degree existed between leading members of op- posing political parties in Cambria county. Cyrus L. Per- shing represented Cambria county in the lower branch of the Legislature in 1862 and was consulted by Governor Curtin concerning the appointment of Mr. Mullin as private secretary. Mr. Pershing assured the Governor that he could find no person better adapted to the duties of the position than Mr. Mullin and that he could implicitly rely upon his fidelity.
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Soon after peace had come Mr. Mullin decided to re- linquish the onerous duties at Harrisburg which had grad- ually affected his health and accordingly resigned the office of private secretary to the Governor on the 1st of May, 1865, to embark in business in Philadelphia. He after- wards looked upon the decision to go to Philadelphia as a mistake and regretted bitterly that he did not return to the practice of law among his old friends at Ebensburg. But the times were abnormal and the wild wave of specu- lation swept the best and coolest men before it. Mr. Mullin had, while at Harrisburg, made some small investments in the stocks of the day which proved to be profitable, and this experience, joined to the unsatisfactory condition of his health, was the impelling motive which led him to yield to the liberal offers of some of his friends that he should go to Philadelphia to exercise a general supervision over several speculative enterprises in which they were interest- ed. He went, but the enterprises of his friends, as well as some investments of his own, met with disaster.
In May, 1866, the position of chief clerk of the State Department at Harrisburg became vacant and Mr. Mullin was appointed to the vacancy. His predecessor, William W. Hays, had been promoted to be Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth, but the health of this gentleman was so seriously impaired that many of the duties of his new office fell to the lot of Mr. Mullin, in addition to the laborious- exactions of the chief clerkship. The preparation of par- dons was included in Mr. Mullin's extraordinary duties. All the correspondence of the State Department he either directed or performed. The pamphlet laws of 1866, the most voluminous ever published, he edited.
In the latter part of September, 1866, Mr. Mullin was appointed by President Johnson collector of internal revenue for the seventeenth district of Pennsylvania, with his office at Ebensburg, relieving Samuel J. Royer, of Johnstown, and at once entered upon his duties. Political feeling had been deeply stirred by the antagonism existing between the Pres- ident and the party which had elected him, and to the impatience of the Republicans with the President's alleged arbitrary exercise of power in removing faithful Republican
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officials may mainly be attributed the failure of the Senate in March following to confirm Mr. Mullin's appointment. This rejection of Mr. Mullin's appointment was an unfor- tunate event in his life. Soon after his rejection he closed his accounts as collector and paid over to the deputy col- lector of the district the money remaining in his hands.
After the termination of the episode which has just been described Mr. Mullin was about to resume the practice of law when he was offered and accepted the position of cash- ier of the Dime Savings Institution of Ashland, Schuylkill county, which had just been chartered. Of this bank Peter F. Collins, of Ebensburg, was president. The name of the bank was changed a year or two later to the Ashland Sav- ings Bank. Mr. Mullin sold his house in Ebensburg and removed his family to Ashland in the fall of 1867. In 1870 he became president of the bank, Mr. Collins retiring, and he remained in this position until the spring of 1875, when the bank failed through the pressure of many adverse circum- stances, most of which had their origin in the Jay Cooke panic of 1873. The severity of the crisis which caused Mr. Mullin to close his bank is seen in the fact that most of the neighboring banks afterwards passed out of existence.
Toward the latter part of 1875 Mr. Mullin, having no promising future before him in Ashland, began to think of removing to Philadelphia. In March, 1876, after residing eight years and a half in Ashland, he was appointed secre- tary of the Pennsylvania Board of Centennial Managers, of which Morton McMichael was chairman and Andrew G. Curtin, Asa Packer, Daniel J. Morrell, John H. Shoenber- ger, George Scott, and Foster W. Mitchell were associates. Mr. Mullin at once removed his family to Philadelphia. He was laboriously engaged in the performance of his new duties until the spring of 1878, when the functions of the board virtually terminated with the presentation to the Pennsylvania Legislature by the Governor of Mr. Mullin's admirable report, printed in two handsome octavo volumes, detailing the work of the board and the part taken by Pennsylvania in connection with the Centennial Exhibition.
I now take up some incidents in the life of Mr. Mullin of a more private character than those already mentioned.
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He had a fondness for military life. At Summerhill, about September, 1849, when only nineteen years old, he assisted in forming the Quitman Guards, a volunteer compa- ny, of which William M. Ott, who had been in the Mexican war, was elected captain. The company was organized by Major John Linton, of Johnstown, brigade inspector. Mr. Mullin was at first a private in the company but soon rose to be second lieutenant and then first lieutenant. He was offered the captaincy in 1852, which he was obliged to de- cline, as he was about to leave Summerhill for Ebensburg. William C. Barbour became captain of the company until it was disbanded a few years afterwards. The Quitman Guards always celebrated the national anniversaries with great spirit. I am reminded by Judge Pershing that Lieu- tenant Mullin delivered an oration on a 4th of July which the Guards assisted to celebrate and that it was published in one or more of the county newspapers. Many members of the Guards entered the Union army and rendered their country good service.
Mr. Mullin possessed decided literary tastes and literary talent of a high order. When fourteen years old he wrote Whig campaign songs and negro melodies which are yet remembered in Bedford county. Throughout his whole life he wrote verses-humorous, satirical, lyrical, and elegiac.
While at Ebensburg Mr. Mullin not only assisted in es- tablishing The Alleghanian, which he edited with true jour- nalistic insight for several years, but he also attached him- self to a good literary society of which he long continued an active member and was frequently its presiding officer. The society maintained a literary paper, and of this Mr. Mullin was at various times the editor. In the pamphlet laws of 1866 and in his masterly Centennial report the tact and judgment of the born editor are plainly seen. He al- ways wrote gracefully and rapidly, knew a good word from a bad one, and could quit when he was done. Mr. Mullin was an ardent lover of the English classics. Shakespeare and Dickens were his favorite authors, and he knew them well. He was well versed in the history of his country and was familiar with the careers of its leading men.
When a boy Mr. Mullin evinced a strong passion for
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sketching and painting, but this taste was but slightly gratified until years afterwards, when he painted in oil sev- eral pictures of much merit. I can not praise too highly his artistic achievements in. ornamental penmanship. He was one of the best penmen who ever resided in Cambria county, and in purely ornamental work with the pen he had few, if any, superiors in the State.
Mr. Mullin was a public-spirited citizen of Ebensburg while he lived there. At various times he served as a mem- ber of its school board and town council. In 1857 he was largely instrumental in creating the Cambria County Mutu- al Fire Insurance Company, of which he was secretary and treasurer. He also rendered valuable assistance in securing in July, 1862, the completion of the Ebensburg Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the construction of which was commenced about 1858. This assistance he was enabled to give while a member of the Legislature in 1861.
Of Mr. Mullin's legal abilities and legal attainments it is enough to say that he won deserved praise from the bench and the bar for the accuracy and neatness of all legal in- struments which emanated from his hand. So well estab- lished was his reputation as a well-read lawyer, and as an accomplished expert in the preparation of legal documents, that in 1866 all the members of the bar of the twenty- fourth judicial district, embracing Cambria, Blair, and Hunt- ingdon counties, signed a recommendation that he be ap- pointed reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The appointment, however, went to another.
The social qualities of Mr. Mullin were of a very high order and he was greatly favored with rare opportunities for their development. When he went to Ebensburg, in addition to making acquaintance with the wit and learning of the bar, the medical fraternity was composed of Dr. William A. Smith, Dr. David W. Lewis, and Dr. William Lemon. Ezekiel Hughes, Edward Shoemaker, and Johnston Moore were leading business men. Major John Thompson kept the leading hotel of the place and his estimable fam- ily was then intact. Then there were the Noons, the Rheys, the Collinses, the McDonalds, and many other excellent families, embracing talented men and accomplished women.
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SAMUEL BELL McCORMICK.
COMMUNICATED TO THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE IN APRIL, 1901, DURING MR. McCORMICK'S LIFETIME.
RECENT references in the columns of the Tribune to the old-time schools and school teachers of Johnstown and its vicinity prompt me to compile from data in my possession the leading facts in the career of Samuel Bell McCormick, a noted teacher of fifty years ago in Johnstown.
S. B. McCormick, as he has always written his name, was born on a farm a short distance south of what is now Larimer Station, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, in West- moreland county, on June 18, 1817. His father, Andrew McCormick, was a native of the north of Ireland and came to this country with his father, John McCormick, and the remainder of the family in 1790, when he was six years old. The McCormicks came directly from Ireland to Lari- mer with a large colony of Scotch-Irish, the Griers, the Bax- ters, the Boyds, the Irwins, and others. They built a church on Matthew Osborn's land, and there are yet in the church- yard forty tombstones of McCormicks, although the church was torn down long ago. S. B. McCormick's mother, whose maiden name was Ann Campbell, the daughter of James Campbell, at one time a rich and prosperous Philadelphia merchant, was born in Philadelphia in 1786. The Camp- bells were also Scotch-Irish, James Campbell coming from the north of Ireland to this country before the Revolution. In course of time James Campbell, with his family, also moved to Western Pennsylvania, the Campbells finally set- tling in the Redstone settlement on the Monongahela river. We give these details partly to illustrate the prominence of the Scotch-Irish element in the early settlement of Western Pennsylvania.
Andrew McCormick became the owner of a piece of land near Larimer Station. From the Larimer farm Mr. Mc-
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Cormick's father moved to Murrysville, where the family resided for seven years. Thence Andrew McCormick moved to Warsaw, in Jefferson county, in 1835, and died there.
S. B. McCormick was almost wholly self-educated. He was never a student at either a college or an academy. Gifted with an acute intellect, ambitious, and studious, he was not satisfied with the limited opportunities afforded by the subscription schools of his day and aspired to better things. He studied geometry with his oldest brother, Latin with a preacher named Marshall and with the Reverend W. W. Woodend, Greek with Thomas B. Keenan, and astrono- my without any assistance except that which he first ob- tained from a "geography of the heavens." When Mr. McCormick was a young man land surveying was one of the learned professions ; a surveyor of farms and roads was a person of consequence; so S. B. McCormick studied sur- veying with an expert surveyor in Brookville, Jefferson county, after the family had removed to that county. But prior to going to Jefferson county Mr. McCormick began in Westmoreland county his life work as a teacher.
S. B. McCormick's father was an Associate Reformed Presbyterian, and having many religious books the son was posted in Bible history and theological questions. For a time, soon after he had commenced teaching, he was a member of Dr. David Kirkpatrick's Bible class at Poke Run Presbyterian church.
In 1840 Mr. McCormick taught school near New Alex- andria, Westmoreland county. One of his pupils was the present Judge A. D. McConnell, of Greensburg, who learned his A B C's at Mr. McCormick's knee. About 1844 Mr. McCormick began the study of law with Hon. Joseph H. Kuhns, of Greensburg, at one time a Whig member of Congress, and was admitted to the Westmoreland bar on September 3, 1846. On September 5, 1846, he was married to Eliza Kemp and moved to Ligonier, where he taught school, practiced law, and started a newspaper. In 1852, with his wife and two children, he moved to Johnstown and began his career as a Cambria county teacher. From that time until his removal to California in 1874 he taught school at Johnstown and Millville, except during a period
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