USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > Commemorative biographical encyclopedia of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania : containing sketches of prominent and representative citizens and many of the early Scotch-Irish and German settlers. Pt. 2 > Part 94
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course in less than four years, and was grad- uated from college in the class of 1891 with the first honors of the class, being the first student east of the Allegheny mountains to take the honors of Waynesburg College.
For two years Mr. Buffington studied law in the office of J. C. McAlarney, and was admitted to the Dauphin county bar in 1893 at Harrisburg. He at once opened a law office in Lykens, and succeeded in building up an extensive practice in Dauphin and adjoining counties. His politics are Repub- lican. He takes an active interest in the P. O. S. of A., and composed a funeral ode for the order.
H. E. Buffington, though. a young man, was engaged as the leading counsel for the defense in the celebrated Zeiders murder trial, March 9, 1896, at Pottsville. The trial came to a sudden termination in one day by the peculiarly shrewd and keenly penetrat- ing cross-examination of the young practi- tioner. Frank Adams, Isaac Bendigo, and Charles Bendigo, of Reiner City, Schuylkill county, were indicted for the murder of Ben - jamin Zeiders, an aged huckster, from Perry county, who, on Christmas night of 1895, had his skull crushed in by a huge stone shortly after a quarrel. Zeiders lingered un- conscious for eight days and died without recovering consciousness, considerable pus having formed on the brain beneath the wound. A post mortem examination also revealed marked symptoms of pneumonia, three-fourths of one lung being inflamed. Young Buffington " took the cue," and by a long and extensive research on the diseases of the brain and lungs, framed an elaborate and ingenious defense. The Commonwealth trustingly relied on the testimony of three local physicians to prove the corpus delicto. The first unsuspecting physician gave dam- aging testimony on direct examination. But Buffington met him with such a hot fire of technical cross-examination and medical au- thorities as to completely break up the Com- monwealth's case and to establish the theory of the defense. The two other expert wit- nesses of the Commonwealth followed the defendant's pneumonia theory and a verdict of " Not guilty " was rendered without the jury's leaving the box. Frank Adams, how- ever, was detained on the same indictment, and a verdict of simple assault and battery was rendered against him. The defendant was admitted to bail, and the case appealed to the Superior Court, before which Mr. Buf-
fington made the chief argument. Mr. W. J. Whitehouse was associate counsel. A de- cision has not yet been rendered.
Harry E. Buffington was married, at Tower City, June 17, 1896, to Miss Elizabeth .1., daughter of Dr. R. B. and Annie (Mathias) Wilson, of Tower City. Mr. Buffington is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
The carcer of Mr. Buffington shows how a young man with noble aspirations can win his way through all difficulties to an honor- able position and qualify himself for influ- ence and usefulness.
The family name is English. The first English child born in Pennsylvania was a Buffington. George Buffington, great-grand- father of Harry E., was born in Chester county, Pa., in February, 1759, and was a son of Benjamin Buffington, also a native of the State. In 1783 George Buffington mar- ried Barbara Hoffman, and had eleven chil- dren; the fifth of these was George Buffing- ton, Jr., grandfather of Harry E. The par- ents, George and Barbara (Hoffman) Buf- fington, both died in Pennsylvania.
George Buffington, Jr., was born May 10, 1795, in Lykens Valley. He was a miller, and lost his mill, which cost him $7,000, by a cyclone which passed over the valley in 1855. He married Catherine Yeager, of German descent, born in Lykens Valley. Their children were twelve in number: they were: Cyrus, born December 30, 1821; Amanda, May 28, 1824, is deceased ; Elias, December 23, 1825 ; John G., born Janvary 31, 1828, died July 27, 1884; Henrietta. born September 9, 1830, died May 22. 1832 ; George W., born December 23, 1832, died January 26, 1871 ; Catherine, born Novem- ber 3, 1834; Elizabeth, born December 3, 1836; Leah, born December 23, 1838; Jeremiah, born November 23, 1840, died November 14, 1843; Peter, born April 11. 1843, died at the age of seventeen ; Aaron, born about 1846, died aged eighteen. The father died in Lykens Valley. He was a Whig. and a member of the Reformed church.
His sixth child, George W. Buffington, was the father of Harry E., and was born in Lykens Valley. He was a distiller and a contractor for hauling logs and timber to the mines. Ilis wife, Susanna, was the daughter of Lewis Lenker, farmer, of Dau- phin county. Their children are: Harvey C., who died young ; Charles F., who resides in Colorado ; Benjamin F., tailor, residing
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in Indiana ; and Harry E. Mr. Buffington was a Republican, and was a member of the Reformed church.
THOMPSON, ALEXANDER F., ex-senator and attorney-at-law, was born at Pottsville, Schuylkill county, Pa., December 7, 1845. He is a son of the late Alexander and Isa- bella (Pennman) Thompson, both paternal and maternal sides of the family being of Scottish ancestry. The father, Alexander Thompson, was born in Dalkeith, Scotland, in 1808, and spent the first twenty years of bis life in his native land. In 1828 he emi- grated to America, accompanied by his brother George, by James and Robert Penn- man, and by Isabella Pennman, who after- wards became his wife, and her sister. Land- ing at New York, they at once proceeded to Schuylkill county, Pa., and settled where the city of Pottsville now stands. Here Mr. Thompson began prospecting for coal, and shortly after, in connection with James and Robert Pennman, engaged in coal mining, which he carried on for the ensuing four or five years. At the end of that time he be- came superintendent of the mines of Potts & Co., and subsequently furnished timber to different mining firms in that section. In 1857 Mr. Thompson removed to Porter township, Schuylkill county, and engaged in flour milling, lumber manufacturing and agricultural pursuits, giving eight years to these occupations. From 1865 until 1871 he did contract work in the mines of Will- iamstown, and from 1871 until the date of his death, which occurred in December, 1873, he lived a retired life.
Alexander Thompson and Isabella Penn- man were married at Pottsville. They had nine children : Robert, who died in child- hood; David P., who resides in Illinois ; William W., who died at Frederick, Md., while serving in defense of his country in 1862; Elizabeth, wife of Hiram Kimmel, who died at Carver Hospital, Washington, D. C., while acting in the capacity of a nurse ; Jennie, wife of Benneville Houtz, residing in Tower City, Pa .; Alexander F .; Robert B., a miner, residing in Tower City; Isabella, wife of George Paul, of Tower City, and James C., residing in Reynoldsville, Pa. Mrs. Isabella Thompson died in Pottsville in 1852.
Alexander Thompson was again married, in Pottsville, to Mary Bast, of that city. To this second union eleven children were born :
Isaac, residing in Tower City, Pa .; George, residing in Alaska; John, residing in Tower City ; Andrew, of Shamokin, Pa .; Abraham, of Tower City; Charles, who was killed in the mines at Tower City ; Mary, wife of George Stout ; Winfield, William, Elmer, and Rebecca, all residing in Tower City, Pa. Their mother, Mrs. Mary Thompson, sur- vives her husband, and resides on the home- stead at Tower City. Mr. Thompson was a Republican and a consistent member of the Presbyterian church.
Alexander F. Thompson attended school for a month in Pottsville. When he was eleven years old his parents removed to Porter township, where he went for a few months to the district school. At the age of twelve he was engaged in the winter in driv- ing a four-horse team hauling logs to the mill, and in summer in working on the farm. He was employed thus for two years ; the two following years he spent in the grist mill of his father.
In 1862, at seventeen years of age, he en- listed at Pottsville in company B, One Hun- dred and Twenty-ninth Pennsylvania vol- unteers, under Col. J. K. Frick and Capt. William Wrenn, for nine months. He was mustered in at Harrisburg, then proceeded with his regiment to Washington, D. C., where they joined the Army of the Potomac, in Virginia. Mr. Thompson completed his term of service in May, 1863, and returned to Tower City, where he worked in the mines until June 30 of the same year, and then re- enlisted in company E, Thirty-ninth State militia, under Captain Mull and Colonel Campbell. He spent six weeks at Cham- bersburg and Greencastle, Pa., was dis- charged at Harrisburg in August, 1863, and returned for a time to his old occupation of mining. He enlisted for the third time, January 20, 1864, in company G, Seventh Pennsylvania cavalry, Capt. William Wrenn and Captains McCormick and Hinkson. He joined his regiment at Nashville, Tenn., and went with them through the Atlanta cam- paign, and during this term of service had two horses shot from under him, one at Rome, Ga., and one at Lovejoy Station. He was finally mustered out of the service, Au- gust 23, 1865, returned to Tower City, and for four years following worked in the mines, during which time he saved enough money to carry him through four terms at the Freeburg Academy. After this he again went back to Tower City and worked in the
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mines until 1872. Then for two and a half years he was a partner in the firm of Snyder & Thompson, in the general mercantile busi- ness, at Lykens. At the end of that time he sold his interest in the business and became a law student with C. W. Raber at Lykens, and Hon. A. J. Herr at Harrisburg. He was admitted to the bar in 1877, and opened an office at Lykens the same year, where he has ever since practiced. Mr. Thompson has built up an extensive and lucrative busi- ness in Dauphin and adjoining counties and in the higher State courts, he being a mem- ber of the bar of the Supreme Court.
Mr. Thompson is a Republican and has been active and prominent in his party. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in November, 1880, and re- elected in November, 1882, and served four years in the House with honor to himself and satisfaction to his constituents. . He was subsequently elected to the State Senate in November, 1884, and re-elected for a second term in November, 1888. He served eight years, during which he was member of many important committees. He was chair- man of mining and mines committees dur- ing his whole term of service, and during his entire service in the Legislature was member of the judiciary general committee. He was prominent in legislative bodies by reason of his eminent abilities as a speaker and debater, always commanding attention when he addressed the body, and making impression by the cogency of his speech and the soundness of his arguments.
Mr. Thompson was married, at Lykens, October 24, 1872, to Lizzie A. Halk, daugh- ter of William and Rebecca (Laudenschlager) Halk, the former a merchant tailor at Wico- nisco. To their union has been born two children : W. Claud, student-at-law, secretary and treasurer of the Williams Valley Light, Heat and Power Company, and Warren Ray, graduate Pennsylvania State College, now taking electrical engineering course at Pennsylvania State College.
Mr. Thompson is a lover of horses and has a track of his own. He has some fine specimens of fast horses. He is a member of Post No. 232, G. A. R., at Lykens, and past commander of William Thompson Post, No. 174, Tower City. The family are mem- bers of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Mr. Thompson began life without the aid and influence of property, but rich in native endowments and strong in pluck and push.
He has traveled the road on foot, and well knows every inch of the way from the hum- blest obscurity to an acknowledged and en- viable prominence and popularity. As a business man, statesman and jurist he is of acknowledged ability.
DUNCAN, JOSEPH, general foundry and machine shop, Lykens, Pa., was born in Derbyshire, England, May 13, 1846. His father, George Duncan, was born in Scot- land. In his younger days he was a miner. While still a young man he removed to England, locating in Derbyshire, and fol- lowed the trade of machinist with the Shef- field and Lancastershire Railway Company. He married Elizabeth Joshuason, born in Leicestershire, England. They had nine children : Mary, Joseph, John, George, Will- iam, David, Martha, Jennie, and Elizabeth. The father and mother both died in Eng- land.
Joseph Duncan attended school until he was nine years old, when he went to work for sixpence a day in the machine shops; this continued until he was fourteen years old, when he was bound to Byer & Pea- cock, locomotive builders, near Manchester. England. For the first three years his wages were one shilling per day ; during the next four years he received one shilling and six pence per day. After his term of ap- prenticeship had expired he visited many parts of England, and worked in various places, getting new ideas of the working of iron, etc.
In 1869 Mr. Duncan came to this country on the steamer City of Paris, landed at New York, and after a short stay went to Phila- delphia, and soon after to Harrisburg. Pa. After a few days he came to Lykens, where for ten years he was machinist for the Sum- mit Branch Railroad Company, and spent nine years in the shops of the Lykens Valley railroad. In 1888 Mr. Duncan bought the present plant from J. M. Hensel for $8,000, and improved it at an additional outlay of $3,000, making it for convenience and com- pleteness of equipment one of the most thoroughly appointed plants in the State, with a capacity for any product, from a tack to a locomotive. The plant is capable of an output of one hundred tons of finished castings per month.
Mr. Duncan was married, at Manchester. England, in 1866, to Sarah Kemp, a native of England, born in 1846. Of their twelve
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children, those now living are: Harriet, wife of George Hersh, miner; Elizabeth, wife of Frederick Senior, foundryman; Jennic, Walter, Josephine, George, and Han- nah. The deceased children are: George, Mary, Sarah, David, and Katie. Mr. Dun- can is a member of the Episcopal church. His politics are Republican. Comfortably situated in his fine dwelling house, with a safe and prosperous business, surrounded by a host of friends and well wishers, Mr. Dun- can may call his career a successful one. .
- STANLEY, ALFRED G., druggist, Lykens, Pa. was born in Salisbury, England, January 24, 1845. His father, Robert Stanley, was born in Nottingham, England, in 1805. In his younger days he was a lace manufacturer, and later in life was a professor of music. He was a distinguished alto singer and was leader of the choir in the Salisbury Cathe- dral. On December 14, 1843, he married Annie Allwood, born in Worksop, Notting- hamshire, who died August 17, 1874. They had nine children : Frederick A., deceased ; Alfred G .; Georgiana, wife of Charles Stroud, lawyer in England ; Thomas A .; Robert, died aged twenty-five years; Maud, wife of Harry Worth, of Nottingham ; Sidney J., also a law- yer; Katie, and Lucy, deceased. The father still resides in England, at the age of eighty- one.
Alfred G. Stanley attended the parochial schools of his native place and the Cathedral College of Salisbury. He learned the drug business with Roberts & Son, with whom he spent four and a half years, after which he went to London and graduated with the well- known firm of Peter Boully, retail druggist, of London. Having worked for some time at the profession in London, he found a change necessary to his health. He came to this country in 1869 and was for a short time in New York, then in Phiadelphia with Ellis Sons & Co. In 1871 he came to Lykens, Pa., and established a first-class drug business with a general supply of all kinds of drugs ; he has acquired the reputation of being one of the most reliable druggists of the county.
Mr. Stanley was married, at Lykens, in December, 1873, to Mary, daughter of G. Spoerl, born in Lykens. They have seven children : Walter, deceased; Frederick, drug- gist, with his father; Charles, also with his father; Wallington Smith; Katie A. M .; Ray, and Mabel. In politics Mr. Stanley is
a liberal. He is a member of the Episcopal church.
For sixteen years Mr. Stanley was presi- dent of the Gratz Agricultural Society ; he has been president of the Lykens Agricul- tural Society for three years. He is a lover of horses, and has some very fine ones. He has in his possession some rare stuffed birds from various parts of the world, some of which he brought from England on his re- turn from a visit to that country in 1886. His visit was made for the purpose of seeing his father, now eighty-one years of age.
Mr. Stanley is a genial gentleman and a live business man. He is the proprietor of the celebrated Stanley Bitters. He is well- known and popular.
LEFEVER, DR. JOHN RUSSEL, homeop- athist, Lykens, Pa., was born in New Bloom- field, Perry county, Pa., October 7, 1860. His father, Dr. Isaac Lefever, was born in Gettys- burg, Pa., in 1820, and was a son of Jacob Lefever, founder and editor of the Gettys- burg Compiler. Dr. Isaac Lefever was edu- cated in Gettysburg, and for some time edited the Compiler. He read medicine and graduated from the University of Pennsyl- vania, and afterwards adopted homeopathy. He practiced in Cumberland county a few years and in Perry county. In 1868 he re- moved to Mechanicsburg, Pa., where he practiced until 1872; he then removed to Harrisburg, where he built up an extensive practice, and where he died October 20, 1893. He was a member of the Reformed church.
John Russel Lefever attended school in New Bloomfield and in Mechanicsburg, and was graduated from the high school, Harris- burg, Pa. He read medicine with his father, and was graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1884. In August of that year he located at Lykens, Pa., where he enjoys a large and successful practice.
Dr. Lefever was married, at Harrisburg, Pa., in 1886, to Myra B., daughter of Samuel M. Ebersole, of Harrisburg. Dr. and Mrs. Lefever have three children: Ilallett R., born October 9, 1887; Russel M., December 15, 1892, and Lillian M., October 17, 1894. Dr. Lefever is a Republican. IIe is a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church, and of Wiconisco Lodge, No. 570, F. & A. M., and State Capital Lodge, No. 70, I. O. O. F., Har- risburg. The Doctor is a very elever man in
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his profession, and of very agreeable person- ality. He is popular and prosperous, happy himself, and making others happy.
LEFEVER, JOHN RUSSEL, M. D., homce- opathist, Lykens, Pa., was born in New Bloom- field, Perry county, Pa., October 7, 1860. The various branches of the Lefever family found widely scattered in Pennsylvania and south- ward generally claim descent from Hugue- not ancestors, exiled from France by reli- gious persecution some two centuries ago. They are to be met with in York, Cumber- land, Crawford and Adams counties, Pa., about Winchester, Va., and in other locali- ties, but it has become impossible to trace relationships among them. The Lefevers of Crawford county and of Winchester are prob- ably the most closely allied to the family treated of in this sketch, having descended from uncles of Jacob Lefever, who was Dr. John R.'s grandfather.
Jacob Lefever was born near Newville, Cumberland county, Pa., May 31, 1,95. He remained at home on his father's farm until he was about twenty, when he went into a printing office in Carlisle, Pa. Leaving Car- lisle in 1818, he went to Gettysburg and there established a newspaper, which he called the Republican Compiler, and which he conducted until 1839, when Governor Porter appointed him register and recorder of Adams county. He held the office until the Constitution made it elective. At the time of his appointment he retired from the paper, and soon after the expiration of his term of office returned to Cumberland county and engaged in farming. In the spring of 1848 Mr. Lefever represented Cumberland county in the State Legislature. Ile was still a resident of this county when he died, April 26, 1875, in his eightieth year.
Dr. Isaac Lefever was the son of Jacob Lefever and his wife Elizabeth, a native of Gettysburg, and of German descent. He was born in Gettysburg, June 15, 1820, and spent in that town the first twenty-five years of his life. It may be said that his education was mainly acquired through his diligent application while employed in his father's printing office; for, although he at- tended school regularly from the carly age of five until he reached his thirteenth year, it was but a common school education, suf- ficient only to acquaint him with the ele- mentary branches. When nearly thirteen
he went into the printing office, worked dur- ing the day and studied at night, often ris- ing before daylight on winter mornings to read and study in the office until breakfast time. The busy young printer even found time for Latin, reciting on winter evenings, about 1833 or 1834, to Dr. J. H. Marsden. now of York Springs, Pa., but at that time prin- cipal of an academy for girls at Gettys- burg.
After his father's return to Cumberland county, Isaac Lefever conducted the Compi- ler until the spring of 1842, when he sold the establishment, intending to remove from Gettysburg. But at this time a new impulse was given to his life, by the influence of David Gilbert, M. D., whose lectures on anatomy and physiology before the senior class of Pennsylvania College he had at- tended, by invitation of Dr. Gilbert, two or three years before. The Doctor now sought an interview with the young man, whose talents he had discerned, and suggested that he should study medicine. The idea was new to Mr. Lefever, but after mature consid- eration and consultation with friends he de- cided to act upon it, and accordingly com. menced reading with Dr. Gilbert in the summer of the same year. He studied un- der bis preceptor until October, 1844, mean- while attending a course of lectures on chemistry at Pennsylvania College, by Prof. M. Jacobs. During the winter of 1844 and 1845 Mr. Lefever attended lectures at the medical department of Pennsylvania Col- lege, in Philadelphia, in which Dr. Gilbert then occupied the chair of surgery. The other professors were Drs. William R. Grant. William Darrach, H. L. Patterson, J. Wilt- bank, and Washington L. Atlee. Of this group of distinguished men, Dr. Atlee is now the sole survivor. Pennsylvania Medical College then, and for a few years after, occu- pied a building afterwards the seat of Hahne- mann College, but the former was always allopathie in its principles.
Dr. Isaac Lefever first practiced his pro- fession at Mount Rock, Cumberland county. Pa., for one year, then moved to Lovsville, in Sherman's Valley, Perry county; in No- vember, 1855, removed to New Bloomfield. county seat of Perry county. Here he joined the Perry County Medical Society, served in all its offices and held his membership until he took up homeopathy. He was also con- nected with the State Medical Society, and among its records are several reports made
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by him on behalf of the Perry county so- ciety. . In 1860 Dr. Lefever was appointed postmaster of New Bloomfield, accepting the office principally on account of some finan- cial difficulties affecting himself and others as sureties for the previousincumbent; these difficulties being removed, his resignation was tendered and accepted, and he was re- lieved of office in 1861. In that year he was appointed surgeon of the Third brigade, Fifteenth division, Uniformed militia of Pennsylvania, and held the commission un- til the then existing militia system was re- modeled. In October, 1862, he was elected associate judge of thecourts of Perry county, and sorved in that office for a term of five years.
In 1862 Dr. Lefever wished to apply for an appointment in the medical department of the army, but could not obtain the con- sent of his wife and family to this step until 1864. The application made, after due ex- amination, he was commissioned and ordered to report to the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania volunteers. With some little difficulty he reached his regiment, which was encamped close by the battlefield of Chupin's Farm, and remained with it until it was discharged. Although his commission was that of assist- ant surgeon, yet as he was the only medical officer with the regiment he performed sur- geon's duty. During a part of the time he also served in the same capacity a New York battery of artillery, besides rendering similar services occasionally to other regi- ments deprived of their medical officers. In July, 1865, the regiment was discharged at Raleigh, N. C., and the Doctor returned home and resumed bis practice.
Even before his graduation from Pennsyl- vania Medical College, which took place in March, 1854, Dr. Lefever had given some consideration to the subject of homeopathy, but laboring under the misapprehension common among allopathic physicians that that system consists merely in giving very minute doses of medicine, he paid it little attention. Still, with a candid desire for in- formation, he purchased and read Hahne- mann's Organon, as well as the treatise of Professor Simpson, of Edinburg, against homeopathy. Influenced, however, rather by the latter book, which was most in ac- cordance with his education, he again dis- missed the subject from his mind and con- tinued allopathic practice. But now, after his return from the army, it was in some
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