History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 79

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Pennsylvania > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 79

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Dr. Sturgeon was a man of commanding stature, of majestic presence, --

" The combination and the form indeed Where every god did seem to set his seal To give the world assurance of a man."

He was a sturdy actor rather than talker, and though a fluent and graceful colloquist, made no pre- tense even, as a public speaker. In the Senate, where he did good work on the committees, and commanded high regard for sterling good sense and integrity, he made no speeches, and received the sobriquet "the Silent Senator." He was a man of great decision of character, and in 1838, while State treasurer, broke up "the Buckshot war" by stubbornly refusing to honor Governor Ritner's order on the treasury for 820,000 to pay the troops, setting guards about the Treasury and personally overseeing them.

In 1814, Dr. Sturgeon married Miss Nancy Gregg, a daughter of James Gregg, of Uniontown, a merchant, and Nancy Gregg, who survived her husband about fifty years, reaching the age of eighty-seven years. Mrs. Dr. Sturgeon died in 1836, at the age of forty- two, the senator never remarrying, leaving five chil- dren, four sons and a daughter, of whom three sons are dead. Of these, one took part in the Mexican

war under Gen. Scott, being Lient. John Sturgeon, of Company H, Second Regiment Pennsylvania Volun- teers, who died in Pueblo, Mexico, in the campaign, on the 18th day of July, 1848.

COL. EWING BROWNFIELD.

Among the venerable men of Fayette County, iden- tified particularly with Uniontown for a period ex- tending from 1805, when, as a child of two years of age, he was brought by his parents to Fayette County, to the year of this writing (1882), a period no less than seven years more than what is commonly counted " the allotted age of man," stands Col. Ewing Brown- field, in the vigor of well-preserved old age, and, if his old-time neighbors are to be credited, without a stain npon his character for general probity and uprightness in his business dealings through life. He was born near Winchester, Va., Sept. 7, 1803, of Quaker parentage. Thomas Brownfield, his father, brought his family to Uniontown in the year 1805, and at first rented and afterwards bought the White Swan Tavern, which he conducted till he died in 1829. Ewing grew up in the old tavern, enjoyed the advantages of the common schools of that day, and when become of fitting years assisted his father as clerk and overseer of the hotel until the father's death, when, in 1830, he and his brother John, now a prominent citizen of South Bend, Ind., formed a partnership in the dry-goods business, of which more further on.

In early manhood Col. Brownfield conceived a great love for military discipline and display,-" the pomp and glory of the very name of war,"-and in a time of profound peace, when he was about twenty years of age, was one of the first to join a Union volunteer company at that time organized. It is one of Col. Brownfield's proud memories that upon the occasion of Gen. Lafayette's visit to Albert Gallatin, at New Geneva, in 1825, he, with several of his companions in arms, went on horseback, as military escort, to the residence of Mr. Gallatin, and were delightedly re- ceived by the latter gentleman and his renowned guest. About that time there came into Uniontown a certain Capt. Bolles, a graduate of West Point, who formed a military drill squad, of which Brownfield was a member. Under the tutelage of Capt. Bolles, Brownfield became proficient in company drill, also in battalion and field drill, etc. After the formation of the First Regiment of Fayette County volunteers, about 1828, Col. Brownfield, then a private, became an independent candidate for major of the regiment, and was elected over three strongly supported candi- dates. Holding the position for two years, he was thereafter, on the resignation of Col. Evans, elected colonel himself without opposition, and continued in the colonelcy for five years, receiving from Maj .- Gen. Henry W. Beeson, at that time a military authority of high repnte, the distinguished compli-

Ewing Brownfield

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UNIONTOWN BOROUGH.

ment implied in the following voluntary plaudit be- | in Western Pennsylvania. He remained at college stowed upon his regiment, namely, "The First ! Fayette County Regiment of volunteers is among the very best field-drilled regiments in the State."

In 1832 he and his brother dissolved the partner- ship before referred to, Ewing continuing the busi- ness till 1836, when he " went West," and settled in Mishawaka, Ind., again entering into the dry-goods business. But owing to the malarial character of the locality in that day, he decided to leave the place after a few months, and returned to Uniontown, where, in 1837, he resumed the dry-goods business. In the same year he bought a house and lot on the corner of Main and Arch Streets, tore away the old building, erected a new one, and there conducted his favorite business, continuing in the same from that date to 1862. In the latter year he disposed of his dry-goods interests, and from that time to 1872 was engaged, for the most part, in the wool business. In 1873 he was elected president of the People's Bank, which position he now holds.

Col. Brownfield was married in 1842 to Miss Julia A. Long, daughter of Capt. Robert Long, of Spring- field township, Fayette Co. They have had three children,-Robert L., Anna E., and Virginia E. Robert, a graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, New Haven, Conn., is now a pros- perous merchant of Philadelphia; Anna E. grad- uated at the Packer Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., and is the wife of William Huston, a wholesale merchant of Pittsburgh ; Virginia died on the 14th of May, 1872.

SMITH FULLER, M.D.

Dr. Fuller, a gentleman of high repute in his pro- fession, on all hands conceded to be the leading phy- sician and surgeon of Uniontown and a wide district thereabouts, as well as a manly man among the man- liest in the various walks of life, is the son of the late John Fuller, of Connellsville, a tanner by trade, and a leading politician of his locality. He was three times a member of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of the State in 1838, and died in 1865, at the age of seventy-nine.

Dr. Fuller's mother was Harriet R. Smith, a daugh- ter of the distinguished physician, Dr. Bela B. Smith, a native of Hartford, Conn., and who practiced medi- cine at West Newton, Westmoreland Co., for fifty years, and died about 1835, having accumulated a large estate, principally landed property, through the practice of his profession.

Dr. Fuller was born in Connellsville in 1818, and in early childhood attended the common schools of Connellsville (then a town of about 1000 inhabitants), till about the age of fifteen, when he was sent to Wash- ington College, an institution then embracing about one hundred students, and the chief seat of learning

three years, and leaving it went to West Newton to study medicine with Dr. John Hasson, a leading physician of Westmoreland County. He read medi- cine with Dr. Hasson for two years, and then took a course of lectures at Jefferson Medical College, Phila- delphia, concluding which he located in Uniontown in the spring of 1840, and entered upon the practice of medicine, which he pursued, developing great skill and laying the foundation of his exceptionally envi- able reputation as a physician until 1846, when he returned to Jefferson Medical College, took further courses of lectures, and graduated in 1847. The emi- nent Robley Dunglison and Prof. Pancoast were prominent professors of the college at that time.

Dr. Fuller returned to his Uniontown home, where he has ever since been located, enjoying an extensive practice. In his early practice physicians were few in Fayette and adjoining counties, and he was often called on to visit patients twenty-five miles distant from Uniontown.

In early life a Democrat, Dr. Fuller co-operated actively with the National American party in 1856, and on the organization of the Republican party united with it. In 1860 he was a member of the Na- tional Convention at Chicago which nominated Abra- ham Lincoln for President. In the same year he was elected to the State Senate from Fayette and West- moreland Counties ; and after the expiration of his term as senator was nominated by the Republicans as representative in Congress; ran against Hon. John L. Dawson, then running for a second term, Dawson being declared elected by a majority of sixteen (in a strongly Democratic district). Dr. Fuller contested the seat, but unsuccessfully.

Aside from his profession, he has been largely en- gaged in business, notably in tanning for the whole- sale trade in Georges township, Fayette Co. He has never united with any sectarian religious organization, though looking with favor upon all practical means of promoting good morals.

Dr. Fuller was twice married. His first wife was Miss Elvina Markle, of West Newton, whom he mar- ried in 1839, and who died in the early part of 1848.

He next married, in 1849, Miss Jane Beggs, of Union- town, with whom he is now living. By his former wife he had three children,-a son and two daughters, -all of whom are now living. By his second wife he has had five sons, three of whom are now living. Three of his sons are practitioners of medicine and one of law.

ROBERT HOGSETT.

Robert Hogsett is the most remarkable man in Fayette County in this, that he has wrought out by his own unaided efforts a larger fortune than any other citizen of the county. Others may possess more wealth, but cannot say as Hogsett can, " I made | it all myself."

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Robert Hogsett was born in Menallen township, March 2, 1820. His father, James Hogsett, was a north of Ireland man, and emigrated to America some time during the early part of the present century. There was nothing about him to distinguish him from his fellow-men, and he died in North Union township, near Uniontown, about the year 1850, going out of the world as he had lived in it, a poor but honest man. He did not live to see his son take as much as the initial step towards that distinguished rank in says he was a good man.

business and financial affairs which he now admittedly holds, but he left the world peacefully for all that, confidently believing that all his children would be able to hold their own in life's great battle. Robert Hogsett's mother was a daughter of Robert Jackson, of the old Jacksou family of Menallen township, who organized Grace Church, near Searight's, the oldest Episcopal Church in the county. At the early age of twelve years Robert was hired out to work for such persons as would employ him, and for such wages as could be obtained for him. His first en- gagement was with Job Wheatley, a farmer, living about one and a half miles northwardly from Sea- right's. He remained with Wheatley but a short time, doing such work as is within the scope and power of a twelve years old boy. Upon quitting Wheatley's service he went to breaking stones on the old National road, a common thing with boys, and men as well, at that day. There are many old men - in Fayette County who when boys and young men broke stones on the old pike. Young Hogsett re- mained on the road wielding the well-remembered little rouud napping-hammer every day for five years, and until he reached the age of seventeen, breaking from two to five perches of stones a day, at twelve ! and a half eents (called a "levy") per perch. Be- coming tired of the monotony of the napping-hammer, he entered into an engagement with Joseph Strickler, who was running " the old Evans mill" on the farm, or rather large plantation of Col. Samuel Evans, in North Union township. Besides running the mill Strickler farmed a portion of the Evans land. Strick- ler was quite a prominent and active business man in his day, and was among the first men of Fayette County who gave attention to the feeding of cattle for the Eastern markets. The Evans mill was de- stroyed by fire while Robert Hogsett was serving for Strickler, but at the time of the burning Hogsett was not working in the mill, but on the Evans farm at farm-work. While in the mill, Hogsett for the most part had charge of the engine, but his duties were multifarious, and he did many things in and about the mill, such as carrying bags of grain from wagons, placing grists on the backs of horses and tossing boys upon them, and starting them home to gladden their parents' hearts with fresh No. 1 flour and the usual allowance of bran and shorts to make slop for the cows. After the Evans mill burnt down Strickler bought Vance's mill, on Redstone Creek, three miles

below Uniontown, which he refitted and operated. This mill is still standing and doing work. Robert Hogsett went with Striekler to Vance's mill. He drove the team that hauled the machinery from the burnt mill to Vance's, a work that occupied him many days. Joseph Strickler had the misfortune to lose his eyesight. After he became blind he removed to the State of Missouri and died there. Mr. Hogsett always speaks in kind terms of Joseph Strickler, and

While engaged in the milling business, Mr. Hog- sett, by reason of exposure to all kinds of weather, contracted quinsy, a complaint that pains him with periodically recurring attacks to this day. He re- mained with Strickler eight years, and until he reached the age of twenty-five. During this period his wages never exceeded one hundred and twenty dollars per year, a rate, however, which at that day was considered high for labor. After quitting the service of Strickler he went to work for Mrs. Sampey, the widow of James Sampey, of Mount Washington. His duties under this engagement were to manage the large mountain farm upon which old Fort Necessity is located ; to make all he could out of it for his employer, and likewise to superin- tend the hotel at that place, over which Mrs. Sampey presided as landlady and hostess. This hotel was a stage-stand at which the " Good Intent" line of stage- coaches, running on the National road, kept relays of teams, and passengers frequently stopped there for meals. There were nine stage-teams standing at the Mount Washington stables all the time. Mr. Hogsett engaged but for a single year with Mrs. Sampey, and in the year cleared for her and paid over to her the handsome sum of four thousand dollars. Now Hog- sett had reached an age at which he was ambitious to own something himself. His first thought after re- solving to make a home for himself that he could call his own was to obtain a good wife. And here the genius of good luck first perched upon his banner, and led him to woo and wed a daughter of John F. Foster, of North Union township. Mr. Foster owned a small but productive farm near Uniontown, and Robert Hogsett, soon after his marriage, rented this farm and set up for himself and his wife. He operated this farm as tenant of his father-in-law for about two years, and then bought it. It contained one hundred aeres, and was the first real estate that Robert Hogsett ever owned, and he owns it to this day, and lives within a few steps of its boundaries. This purchase was made about the year 1848.

It will be seen that at this date, while Mr. Hogsett had displayed indomitable energy and industry, as well as close economy, his earnings were inadequate to the purchase of a farm even of small proportions and at a small price, the best average farm in Fayette County at that time rating only at about fifty dollars per acre ; and that was the price he paid for the farm of his father-in-law. But owing to the relationship

Robert Hoggett

349

UNIONTOWN BOROUGH.

between the grantor and grantee, the latter, of course, obtained favorable terms. His industrious and eco- nomical habits, however, soon enabled him to acquire a sufficient sum of money to pay for this farm in full, when he got his deed, and stood forth for the first time a freeholder. When he commenced farming for himself as lessee on his father-in-law's land, his whole ontfit consisted of two poor horses and one old sled. As he pushed along he added to his stock, and soon became the owner of an ordinary farm team. It was his practice at this period to haul the grain he raised into the mountains and sell it to the tavern-keepers on the old National road, which was then a crowded thoroughfare; and such indeed was the practice of nearly all the farmers in the neighborhood of Union- town and many portions of Fayette County.

The National road furnished a ready market for all kinds of farm produce, and the mountains being remote from the rich agricultural lands better prices were ob- tained there than "in the settlement," as the region west of Laurel Hill was called. After .disposing of a load of grain the farmer proceeded with his team to Cumberland, and returned with a load of merchandise to Brownsville or Wheeling, for the transportation of which he obtained remunerative prices, and thus was enabled to make profitable trips. It was always con- sidered an indispensable matter to secure what was called a "back load." Farmers thus employed were called "sharpshooters," a term used to distinguish them from the "regulars," as those were called who made transportation a regular business. Robert Hog- sett was therefore called a "sharpshooter," but he little heeded "nicknames" so long as he pursned an honest calling and obtained an honest living. He was utterly oblivions to everything but the accomplish- ment of his aims and purposes, always pursuing them, however, with the strictest regard for honesty and propriety.

It may be said that the turning-point of Mr. Hog- sett's wonderfully successful career was his marriage with Miss Foster and the purchase of her father's farm. After that he moved forward slowly and cautiously at first, but always making his points with certainty. Honesty, industry, and frugality were his dominant characteristics, and these when combined, rarely fail to bring success to any man who has the good fortune to possess them.

For many years after he became settled on his own homestead Robert Hogsett devoted himself exclusively to legitimate farming and stock-raising pursuits, which brought him large profits, owing mainly to his judi- cious management. In 1858-59, when the first railroad was built to Uniontown, called the Fayette County road, he took a contract for construction, and com- pleted it with characteristic energy and promptitude; and upon the completion of the road, at the urgent solici- tation of the directors, he consented to serve as super- intendent, a position he held but a short time, not fancying the railroad business, and possessing too much

business talent to be wasted on a twelve-mile branch. He is now, however, a director in the Southwest Rail- road Company, a position he has held from the first organization of that company. Soon after the con- struction of the Fayette County road, above mentioned, he purchased the Isaac Wood tract of land, near Mount Braddock, a large farm underlaid with the nine- foot vein of coking coal. He moved on to this farm and lived on it a number of years, leaving the old Foster farm in charge of one of his now grown-up sons. He subsequently purchased the Jacob Murphy farm, adjoining the Wood farm, and also underlaid with the big vein of coking coal. Here he erected coke ovens, and operated them a number of years with his customary success. He recently sold these works and the coal adjacent for a large sum of money, suf- ficient of itself to constitute an ordinary fortunc. He next bought the Judge Nathaniel Ewing farm, one mile north of Uniontown, on which he at present resides. Altogether, he is at this time the owner of four thousand eight hundred acres of land, twelve hundred of which lie in the county of Logan, Ohio, of excellent quality for farming and grazing. He has three thousand six hundred acres in Fayette County, all of the best quality of farming land, and underlaid with the celebrated Connellsville vein of coking coal, except eight or nine hundred acres of mountain range.

He is also the owner of a one-half interest in the Lemont Furnace, which has a daily capacity of forty tons, and he personally manages the affairs of this fur- nace, in addition to bestowing careful attention upon his extensive farming and stock-raising interests. And this colossal fortune was made in a few years by a man who started out in the world with nothing to assist him but willing hands, a clear head, and an honest heart. Robert Hogsett is small in stature, and wears a full beard. While he is not a member of any church, he is temperate and exemplary in his habits. He never indulges in profanity, nor does he use tobacco in any form. All his life he has followed the precept of the maxim, " Early to bed and early to rise;" and if the practice of this precept has not made him healthy, it has at least made him wealthy and wise. Without opportunity of going to school in early life, as has been seen, his education is limited to the rudiments of book learning, and he has prob- ably never seen the following lines, although his career. is a perfect illustration of the truthfulness of the sentiment they contain, viz. :

"The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were towering upwards in the night."

Robert Hogsett is utterly indifferent to the gilded signs of fashion and fancy. A brass band on the street makes no more impression upon him than the murmurings of the rivulet that threads its course through one of his rich meadows. He pays no atten- tion to "side-shows," but never misses the " main

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

chance." It must not be inferred from this, however, that he is lacking in hospitality or generosity. On the contrary, he lives well, and no man greets or en- tertains his friends with warmer cordiality. When at home, released from the anxious cares of business engagements almost constantly pressing upon him, he delights in receiving the calls of his neighbors and friends, and derives pleasure in talking with them on the common topics of the hour. With all his good fortune he has suffered one sad misfortune, the death a few years ago of his wife, Jane Foster. But Provi- dence, as if unwilling that the even current of his successful life should seem to be broken or per- turbed, sent him another wife in the person of Susan Allen, one of the most excellent ladies of Fayette County.

Detroit, Mich., he traveled on foot to his relatives in Westmoreland County, Pa. Here he married Leah Markle, the youngest of the twenty-two children of Gasper Markle, who settled in Westmoreland prior to 1760, coming from Berks County, Pa., where his father had settled in 1703, having upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes fled from Alsace in 1686 to Am- sterdam, where he engaged in business until he took ship for America.

After his marriage A. F. Thompson returned with his wife to his Kentucky home, where his youngest son, Jasper Markle Thompson, was born, near Wash- ington, Mason Co., Aug. 30, 1822. Mr. Thompson's father and mother both dying before he was three years old, he was taken to Mill Grove, Westmoreland Co., Pa., and lived several years with his grand- mother, Mary Markle (whose maiden name was Roth- JASPER MARKLE THOMPSON. ermel, of which family is P. F. Rothermel, who has achieved a national reputation as an artist through The character and remarkable career of Jasper Markle Thompson, now and since 1870 president of the First National Bank of Uniontown, may, per- haps, be best illustrated by a brief recital of the his- tory of his immediate progenitors, from whom he evidently inherited the elements of the vigorous but modest character which he has manifested through- out his career in life. He comes of an ancestry on both the paternal and maternal sides-the one Scotch- Irish, the other Pennsylvania Dutch-who were driven from the lands of their birth because of their relig- ious convictions, and found a refuge in the colonies of America, in the province of Penn, early in the eighteenth century. His paternal grandfather, like many other of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the Cumberland Valley, desiring to stand upon the fron- tiers of civilization, drifted westward to Westmore- land County prior to the Revolutionary war, and took up a tract of land in the vicinity of Mount Pleasant. His wife was Mary Jack, a daughter of John Jack, a gentleman who was prominent, with others of his family, in drafting and uttering the his great painting, the " Battle of Gettysburg"). After her death, in 1832, he lived with his cousin, Gen. Cyrus P. Markle, for eighteen years. While with Gen. Markle he worked on the farm, at the paper- mill, in the store, sold goods, kept books, etc., till April, 1850, when he moved to Redstone township, Fayette Co., and purchased part of "the Walters farm," two miles from New Salem, and lived there until September of the same year. He then removed to the farm on which he now lives, two miles and a half from Uniontown, in Menallen township, and farmed and dealt in live-stock until 1862, when he was appointed collector of internal revenue for the Twenty-first District of Pennsylvania, the largest dis- trict in the State except those of Pittsburgh and Phil- adelphia. He was afterwards appointed receiver of commutation money for the same district, and in this capacity collected and paid over to the government over 8450,000, in addition to some 82,000,000 collected as internal revenue, having collected over $100,000 tax on whisky in one day. He held two commissions as collector from President Lincoln, and resigned his Hannastown Declaration of Independence in 1775. ' post under the latter one after holding it for over four years.

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 79

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314