USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > Genealogical and personal history of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Volume II > Part 56
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(IV) William Stewart, son of Sampson and Rachel (Stewart) Steven- son, was born in Greene township, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, December 20, 1851. He attended the public schools in his youth, and has spent his entire life on the farm where he now resides. This is a fertile tract of one hundred and forty-five acres, on which he conducts general farming and dairying, in which he has been comparatively successful. His party affilia- tions and church membership are the same as those of his father, except that in late years he has been voting independent of party.
Mr. Stevenson married, April 23, 1879, Mary Alice Graham, who was born in Toledo, Tama county, Iowa, January 18, 1857. She was a daughter of Robert N. and Martha ( Moore) Graham, both natives of Carroll county, Ohio. Robert N. Graham was a son of James and Mary (Nelson) Graham, the former a native of Ireland. Robert N. was also a grandson of Matthew and Hannah (Hunter) Nelson, pioneer residents of Greene township, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. In 1861 he enlisted in Company I, Seventh Iowa Infantry Regiment. He took part in the Fort Donelson, Pittsburgh Landing, and all the battles in which his regiment was engaged, being wounded at Fort Donelson. He was first lieutenant, acting captain at the time of expiration of his three years' term of enlistment. He re-enlisted in the Sixth United States Veterans, and at the close of the war was sta- tioned at Washington, D. C. In this capacity he was a participant in the gruesome closing of the final tragedies of the war. He was in the detail that guarded the prison in which the Lincoln assassination conspirators were
Phily . Hamilton
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confined, and guarded the scaffold when Herrold, Atzerott, and Mrs. Surratt were executed, and later when Wirz, the keeper of the Andersonville prison, shared the same fate. Robert N. was born September 11, 1833, and died March 17, 1912. Martha, his wife, was born September 30, 1829, and died at Malvern, Ohio, June 4, 1909.
Children of William Stewart and Mary Alice (Graham) Stevenson: Sampson Percy, Robert Willis, Samuel Nelson, Martha Hunter, Rachel Florence, Mary Luella, and Susan Nelson, called "Nellie," who died Decem- ber 17, 1911.
Philip E. Hamilton, a promising young lawyer in Beaver
HAMILTON county, Pennsylvania, maintains offices at Beaver and Beaver Falls. Although he has been engaged actively in legal work for only one year, he has already built up a large and lucrative clientage, and is rapidly gaining prestige as one of the leading young at- torneys 'in this section of the State.
A native of Tyrone, Blair county, Pennsylvania, Philip E. Hamilton was born February 9, 1884, son of James C. M. and Eliza Ann (Wilson) Hamilton, the former of whom is a prominent dentist at Beaver Falls, where the family home has been maintained since 1895. Philip E. Hamilton received his early educational training in the public schools of Tyrone and Beaver Falls, in which latter place he attended Geneva College, from which institution he was graduated with honors as a member of the class of 1906, duly receiving his degree of Bachelor of Science. In the autumn of 1906 he became principal of the Fallston, Pennsylvania, public schools, and after serving in that capacity for a period of four months he was appointed prin- cipal of the Slippery Rock Model High School of the State Normal Insti- tution, where he remained for two years. In the fall of 1908 he was matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania, in the law department of which he was graduated in 1911, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. During the last year of his law course he was associated in legal work with Hon. Henry J. Scott, of Philadelphia. After graduation he came to Beaver Falls, and on admission to the Pennsylvania State bar, February 3, 1912, he entered into a partnership alliance with Hon. J. Sharpe Wilson, of this place. On May 1, 1912, this partnership was dissolved, and he is now practising alone, and is doing a splendid legal business in Beaver Falls. Mr. Hamilton is a valued member of the Beaver County Bar Association, and is affiliated with the Sons of Veterans, his father having served as captain of Company D, 110th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, during the entire four years of the Civil War. In his religious faith he is a member of the Presbyterian church, to whose charities he is a most liberal con- tributer. In politics he accords allegiance to the principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor; and, while he is not an office seeker, he is ever on the alert and enthusiastically in sympathy with all measures and enterprises projected for the general welfare.
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This name is an old one, found in England as early as the BALDWIN Conquest, and was there quite common. It appears on the roll of Battle Abbey and in Domesday Book, but there were Baldwins in England as early as 672. In America the name appears with the earliest settlement of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The branch of which Robert Bell Baldwin, of Rochester, Pennsylvania, is a twentieth century representative, springs from the Massachusetts family, and first appeared in Western Pennsylvania in 1803. In a list of early settlers of Robinson township, Allegheny county, made for the year 1803, is found the name of Robert Baldwin. He was the grandfather of Robert Bell Bald- win, and came to Allegheny county from his Massachusetts home. He was a millwright and surveyor, following both occupations in Allegheny county, and became a man of many affairs, prominent among his fellows, well liked for many agreeable qualities. He married Annis Perry, and was the father of : Perry, Robert, John, Samuel, Henry, of whom further ; Mary, Amanda, Julia A., and Sarah.
(II) Henry, son of Robert and Annis (Perry) Baldwin, was born in Robinson township, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, in 1808. His trade was that of his father, millwright, and he engaged in this business through- out his active years. He married Mary Bell, and had children: 1. Daniel, deceased. 2. James F., a carpenter employed by the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie railroad; was killed between Beaver and New Brighton by the train bearing the body of President James A. Garfield. 3. Robert Bell, of whom further. 4. John, born in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, in 1841 ; a sol- dier under Captain Darrah, Company I, 140th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, in the Civil War. During his term of service he was thrice taken prisoner, and at different times was confined in Libby, Belle Isle, and Salisbury prisons. While held prisoner in the last-named place he attempted to escape, and, detected in the act, was struck on the head by one of the guards, the blow such a hard-delivered and such a vicious one that it caused almost total deafness, from which he has since been a sufferer. All of the important battles in which his company was engaged found him in action, and he held a worthy record as a soldier. He now lives retired at Monaca, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. 5. Elizabeth, deceased. 6. Amanda, a resident of Monaca, Pennsylvania. 6. Albin.
(III) Robert Bell, son of Henry and Mary (Bell) Baldwin, was born in Robinson township, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, May 17, 1839. He was educated in the common schools of the locality, and worked on his father's farm until he attained his majority, when he moved to Oil City, Pennsylvania, and became interested in oil producing. This was his busi- ness from 1862 until 1877, and substantial success attended his operations during the intervening fifteen years, receiving at times a price reaching seven dollars and one-half per barrel for oil. He became an expert well- driver, and was the first to successfully drive what is termed, in the language of the oil fields, a "dry hole," being the second to attempt this method of
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well-driving. Upon his moving to Rochester, Pennsylvania, in 1877, he built his present home at No. 399 New York avenue. From 1877 until his retirement from active business in 1895, Mr. Baldwin was engaged mainly in the driving of oil wells, operating principally in Somerset and West- moreland counties, and in this line became well known as a driver whose work was uniformly successful and one who was a thorough master of his craft. Mr. Baldwin's early political faith was Republican, and his first vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln, when that great man was first a presi- dential candidate, but he is now in sympathy with the Washington party, holding great admiration and respect for the Progressive leader, Theodore Roosevelt. Since 1900 he has been assessor of the borough of Rochester, and for seven years was a member of the school board, serving as president during that time. His religious belief is Lutheran. Mr. Baldwin is a citizen of loyal and generous attributes and has always willingly answered a call to public duty, and in Rochester commands the hearty friendship of many who are glad to call him friend.
He married Jane Ellen, daughter of Rev. J. B. Breckenridge. Children of Robert Bell and Jane Ellen (Breckenridge) Baldwin: I. Charles B., born in Oil City, Pennsylvania, March 4, 1873; publisher of the Saturday Evening Journal, a Socialist periodical; married Ida Schiedmantel; children : Robert J., Cecil H., and Ruth Esther. 2. George Augustus, born December 12, 1875; an attorney of Rochester, Pennsylvania ; he has twice represented the Twenty-fourth district in the Pennsylvania legislature, being elected the second time as the candidate of the Progressive party ; he married Elizabeth J. Spyerer, and has two sons, Richard S. and George A. 3. Paul Howard, an attorney, associated in practice with his brother, George Augustus; he married Dr. Caroline Marcy, a graduate of the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia, who after one year of hospital work began practice, now attending a large clientele in Rochester, Pennsylvania. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin: Thomas Marcy and Mary S.
McCREARY To trace the family of McCreary to the fountainhead from which all of the name spring, would require a lengthy excursion into Irish history, and a minute explora- tion of all of its interesting details, for in all of the great national move- ments of that harassed land, whether political, social, industrial or religious, a McCreary was ever among the leaders. Decisive convictions have dic- tated the actions of those of the name of whom record remains-a trait that time has done little to weaken or years to efface.
(I) James McCreary, the immigrant, was born in county Tyrone, Ire- land, in 1812, and there spent his youthful days, occupied in the obtaining of an education and in preparation for a life work. Farming had for many years been the calling of his ancestors, and in this he was trained as a boy in his native land. Later he was proprietor of a hotel or inn, and on account of upholding personal liberty, fled to the United States. He was married
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in Ireland to Mary Hopper, October 30, 1837, and upon reaching this country he settled in Pittsburgh, and engaged in the bakery and confec- tionery business. Later he took up the cattle and horse business in the same city, where he died August 7, 1848. His widow, Mary (Hopper ) McCreary, who was born in county Tyrone, Ireland, in 1811, married, September 22, 1849, David Brown; she died in Pittsburgh, September 17, 1867. Children of James and Mary (Hopper) McCreary, the first two born in Ireland, the others in Pittsburgh: I. David, born Angust 3, 1838; came to the United States, and served in the army during the Civil War; he was a member of Hancock's division at Gettysburg; was wounded in the battle of Antietam, and participated in the Wilderness campaign, and the first battle of Bull Run; he served in the volunteer fire department ; died in Pittsburgh, December 2, 1871. 2. James, born July 9, 1839 ; came to the United States; served through the Civil War, and like his brother David, was engaged in the desperate Wilderness campaign. 3. Robert, of whom further. 4. Thomas, born January 3, 1845; married, May 24, 1878, Suzanna Smail. 5. Eliza, born June 20, 1847; died May 25, 1848. Child of David and Mary (Hopper-McCreary) Brown: William John, born December 28, 1852, married Catherine ( Hester) Brown.
(II) Robert, son of James and Mary (Hopper) McCreary, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1841, and died in Monaca, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, November 1, 1895. His education was obtained in the public and private schools of the locality, and in young manhood he learned the glassblower's trade in the factories of Pittsburgh, following that occupation for many years. He located in Bridgewater in 1867, later removed to Pittsburgh and resided there until 1882. Still later he once more completed the circle between the two places, and after making his home for a time in old Phillipsburg, moved to Bridgewater, later to Roches- ter, finally coming to Monaca, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, his home at the time of his death. When the discord between the northern and the southern states heightened into actual warfare he took up arms in defense of the union of the states, as did two of his brothers, and served ten months. His political sympathies were strongly Republican, and in religious belief he was reared in the Presbyterian faith; his wife was a communicant of the Roman Catholic church. He married Mary Hester, born in Wolver- hampton, Staffordshire, England, August 15, 1852, daughter of John Hester. born in county Mayo, Ireland, and his wife, Catherine Prile, who died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. John Hester came to the United States and Pennsylvania in 1855, and for a considerable number of years was en- ployed on boats plying the streams of that region, then for eighteen years holding a position in a gas plant. Coke burning and quarrying later were his occupations and he was engaged in the original construction of the Lake Erie railroad. He died in Allentown, Pennsylvania, at the home of his youngest son, James. Children of John and Catherine (Prile ) Hester : 1. Bridget, deceased. 2. John, lives in West Virginia. 3. Mary, married
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Robert McCreary. 4. Bernard. 5. Catherine, married W. J. Brown, of Pittsburgh. 6. Patrick, resides in Toledo, Ohio. 7. William Thomas. 8. James, lives in Pittsburgh. Children of Robert and Mary (Hester) Mc- Creary : I. Mary A., deceased. 2. William J., deceased. 3. Thomas William, of whom further. 4. R. James, deceased. 5. John, born April 12, 1873; an employee of the Phoenix Glass Company, lives in Monaca ; married Rose (Bird) McCreary. 6. Robert Bernard, born February 14, 1875; an employee in Phoenix Glass Company, Monaca; married Gertrude (Sanders) Mc- Creary, who died February 17, 1910; he subsequently took unto himself a second wife, Mary (McGuire) McCreary. 7. Joseph, deceased. 8. George W., born February 1, 1879; a glassblower in employ of Phoenix Glass Company ; lives at Monaca Heights; married Margaret (Feeney ) McCreary. 9. Gertrude, deceased. 10. William, deceased. 11. Mary, born December 23, 1884; married Albert Pollock, and lives at Monaca Heights. 12. Paul, cleceased. 13. Bridget, deceased.
(III) Thomas William, third child and second son of Robert and Mary ( Hester) McCreary, was born in Pittsburgh, South Side, Pennsylvania, April 24, 1870. His public school education was obtained in the city insti- tutions of the Sixth ward of Pittsburgh, his residence when he was twelve years of age being changed from Pittsburgh to Monaca. His education, however, did not stop at this point, for after he had attained his majority he attended night school in Beaver and studied commercial subjects under Professor W. P. Pollock. When ten years of age he began to work in a glass factory, interrupting this pursuit to attend school for two years more, in 1882 obtaining a position with the Phoenix Glass Company in the capacity of "carrying-in" boy. In 1890 he moved to Indiana, locating at Ellwood, returning after a short stay to Monaca, where he once more began work at his trade. In this line he continued until 1897, when he was placed in charge of the subscription department of a Rochester, Pennsylvania, weekly newspaper, which he directed for three months and resigned to attend school. He then enrolled in Beaver College, taking a course in a few selected subjects for which he felt that he would have a future use. In 1899 he resigned his position with the Phoenix Glass Company and spent the winter in Philadelphia, working at his trade during the day and attending school during the evenings. This he did during all the winter months, in July of the following year returning to Monaca, Pennsylvania, and accepting the assistant superintendency of the Phoenix Glass Company, of which Edward Kaye was superintendent, served in this capacity until December 20, 1910, when he resigned. He immediately formed a connection with the Glass Specialty Company, of Fostoria, Ohio, as traveling salesman, later having charge of one of the company's plants. In June, 1913, he returned once more to Monaca, becoming general manager of the Phoenix Glass Company, whose service he had left three years before. This is the position he now fills with experienced ability, the vast gulf separating the humble station that was his when he first appeared in the firm's employ, and his
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present high office only serving to show how well his efforts have been directed in the struggle for advancement. Especial honor is due him in praise of his steady rise, for at the beginning of his career he not only possessed no advantages, but lacked many of the opportunities that are commonly regarded almost as a birthright by youths of today. Recognizing his deficiencies along educational lines, he did not let this condemn him to a lifelong association with those of mediocre talents, but by assiduous application and the devotion of spare hours to study he acquired a knowl- edge practical in all its phases and liberal in many. Hard labor held no terrors for him, and to this quality much of his material success may be attributed. Through a lifelong acquaintance with glass manufacturing and selling he is admirably fitted to direct the affairs of his company, and under his jurisdiction a continued reign of prosperity should attend his efforts. He was formerly a member of the glassworkers' union, and besides being a member of the executive board and numerous important committees of that organization, he had on several occasions represented the union as a delegate at conventions, and for several years as a representative in con- ferences. His close acquaintance with union affairs and his knowledge of conditions existing among those whom he employs, is greatly in his favor in preserving amicable relations between the heads of the company and the employees, and should serve to avert the ever-threatening danger of strikes, the industrial bugbear. He is a member of the Roman Catholic church, as are his family, and allies himself with the Democratic party, having at one time been secretary of the Democratic county committee and for one term auditor of the borough of Monaca.
Mr. McCreary married, June 26, 1894, Mary Rose Ganley, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 8, 1874, daughter of John and Mary (Rocks) Ganley, both natives of Ireland. Each came to the United States with their parents in childhood, her girlhood being spent in Massachusetts, his youth in Brooklyn, New York. They came to Monaca, Pennsylvania, settling there in 1885, where he was employed as a glassblower. Her death occurred in that place, August 10. 1900, he surviving her, a resident of Monaca. Children of Thomas William and Mary Rose (Ganley) McCreary : I. Mary Agnes, born December 28, 1895. 2. Robert Emmett, born August 24. 1897. 3. John Charles, born January 29, 1899. 4. Thomas Francis, born September 29, 1900. 5. Marcella Veronica, born December 22, 1909.
STEVENSON The Stevensons of Beaver county, Pennsylvania, of whom O. J. Stevenson, of Beaver, is a representative, descend from James Stevenson, who came from county Donegal, Ireland, just prior to the revolution, settling near Philadelphia. James Stevenson enlisted in the colonial army, and was for eight months held prisoner in New York City by the British. After his release he was appointed tax collector by the government to collect taxes levied on non- combatants for the support of the armies in the field. He served in this
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capacity until the close of the war, then engaged in charcoal burning in Chester county, Pennsylvania. He resided later in Virginia; was a resident of Pulaski township, Lawrence county, Pennsylvania, in 1806; and of Poland, Ohio, in 1808. At the latter point he purchased a tract of wild land which he cleared, converting the timber into charcoal which he sold to the Yellow Creek Furnace, located near Poland. Here he continued so engaged until his death. His first wife, Hannah Bull, was a sister of Colonel Bull, an officer of the revolution; children: Andrew, Thomas, Elijah, Margaret, Lucy, Nancy, Sarah, Hannah and Mary. He married (second) Catherine Moore, who bore him: Robert, James, William, Re- becca, Elisha M. married Nancy Dawson ; Silas, Samson, Samuel (of whom further), and one who died in infancy.
(II) Samuel, son of James and Catherine (Moore) Stevenson, was born at Poland, Ohio, about 1822, youngest of the seventeen children of his father, and died in 1855. He married when a young man, and settling in Glasgow, Beaver county, there followed the trade of chair making in an establishment of his own. Finding this a steady but not an attractive, lucrative source of income, in 1854 he and his family started for the west, Kansas being their objective point. They traveled down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to St. Louis, where, navigation being blocked by ice, they were compelled to lay over until the spring thaw. In this winter the wife and mother died, and though almost frantic with grief, the rest of the family continued on their way to Kansas. Here Mr. Stevenson pur- chased one hundred and sixty acres of land near Leavenworth, and com- menced building a home, which was not yet completed when he and all his children were stricken with fever and ague. In the fall (1855) they returned to Pennsylvania, where, as a tragic end to an ill-fated trip, the father of the family died, two weeks after their arrival, not the first to have been disappointed in the search for better things, nor the first to pay as toll his most precious possession, life. Beginning with the death of the mother in St. Louis, misfortune had pursued the family throughout their entire journey, the attack of malaria suffered by all so weakening Mr. Ste- venson that the homeward journey was too great strain upon his fever- racked and chill-shaken body. Relatives rallied to the aid of the orphaned, of whom there were seven, and all were provided with comfortable homes. Samuel Stevenson married Nancy Dawson, of Hookstown, Pennsylvania, a descendant of an English family.
(III) Homer, son of Samuel and Nancy (Dawson) Stevenson, was born in Glasgow, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. September 7, 1844. Left an orphan when eleven years of age by the sad and untimely death of his father, he was offered a home by the youngest sister of his father. Hannah (Stevenson) Crowe, who resided near Elkton, Columbiana county, Ohio. He lived there until his aunt's death, when he went to live with her son. In 1859 he came to Industry to make his home with an older sister, Mrs. Hayes, with whom he lived until the outbreak of the Civil War. As soon
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as he attained an age that made him eligible for service, he enlisted in the army of the North in Company I, 56th Regiment State Militia, which was immediately dispatched for duty in West Virginia, to relieve troops guarding government stores. In 1863 he enlisted in Company K, 193d Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, and while serving this period was the victim of an attack of ague, the second he had experienced in his lifetime, the first being suffered in Kansas. At the conclusion of the war he returned to Industry and obtained employment on a steamboat plying the waters of the Ohio, remaining in this service until 1872, when he was married and began farming operations. In 1880 he purchased a tract of fifty-two acres in Brighton township, and there resides at the present time, confining his operations almost exclusively to fruit raising, only growing enough grain to feed his own stock. He raises fruit of high grade, his products ranking among the best of the neighborhood. He conducts his operations along safe, conservative lines, adopting the best of modern methods, and obtains lucrative results. In local affairs he plays a prominent part, supporting the Republican party, and has been a member of the township school board. Mr. Stevenson married, April 30, 1872, Margaret J. Hineman, a native of Pennsylvania, daughter of John M. Hineman, who purchased a farm in Beaver county just after the close of the Civil War. Children of Homer and Margaret J. (Hineman) Stevenson: 1. Mary, married D. J. Engle, and lives in Brighton township, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. 2. Della, married Dallas McGaffick, a resident of Ohio township, Beaver county. 3. John Dawson, a physician in practice at Aliquippa, Beaver county. 4. Blanche, married George A. Kirk, resides in Beaver. 5. Olen Jay (of whom further). 6. Virginia, married J. W. Spillman, a physician, and lives near Wheeling, West Virginia.
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