History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 92

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 92

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The paper manufactured at this mill was of very superior quality, caused, as it was said, by the clear- ness and purity of the water which was used, that of the Youghiogheny River. The product of the mill was shipped by the boat-load to New Orleans and other points on the lower river. The business done here, both by the original proprietors and by Mr. Knox and his partners (but particularly by the latter firm), was very large, and quite a little village grew up in the vicinity of the mill. Only an old stone house and a mass of ruins now remain to show the location of the once prosperous manufactory and the neighboring dwellings.

The Pittsburgh and Connellsville Gas-Coal and Coke Company's Works are located on the railroad at Davidson's Station, north of the borough limits, on a tract of about four hundred acres of land purchased of Daniel R. Davidson and Faber & Miskimmens, of Pittsburgh.

About 1856, Norton, Faber & Miskimmens com- menced operations at this place, and had sunk a shaft about eighty feet in depth when circumstances com- pelled a suspension of the work. Norton sold out his share to the two other partners, whose interest was afterwards purchased by the company as above men- tioned.

The company was organized about 1860, with a capital of $300,000. Having purchased the David- son lands and the Faber & Miskimmens interest, they commenced work at once, sunk a shaft, and built and put in operation forty coke-ovens, which number was increased by John H. Dravo, who took charge in 1868. The business has been successful from the beginning. The shaft is 150 feet in depth, with drifts (one a mile

404

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

in length) tending towards the surface. Tenant-houses and a store are connected with the works. The com- pany has now 295 ovens, and the extent of its opera- tions may be judged from the amount of coke shipped, as shown in the railroad statistics embraced in the his- tory of Connellsville borough. The works are under charge of Charles Davidson, manager. The directors of the company are James M. Bailey, president ; John F. Dravo, secretary and treasurer ; Alexander Brad- ley, William Van Kirk, Richard Grey, and Daniel R. Davidson, of Beaver, Pa.

The Overholt Distillery, located on the bank of the Youghiogheny at Broad Ford, and widely known and famed for the high grade of its product, was erected and put in operation by Abraham Overholt in the year 1853. At that time it had a capacity to distil one hundred bushels of grain per day. Soon after the starting of the establishment Mr. Overholt took in as partners his two sons, Henry and Jacob. The latter died while a member of the firm, and in 1865, Henry Overholt sold out his interest, and A. O. Tinstman be- came a partner with Abraham Overholt. In 1867 the present distillery building was erected. It is four fu 1 stories high, with attics, and sixty-six by one hundred and twelve feet on the ground, with two wings twenty- five by twenty-five feet each, and three stories high. Business was commenced in this building in 1868.

After the death of Abraham Overholt, in 1869, the business was continued by the executor of his estate and A. O. Tinstman till 1872, when Tinstman pur- chased the Overholt interest, and carried on the busi- ness alone till the latter part of 1874, when C. S. O. Tinstman became associated with him. In 1876, C. S. O. Tinstman and C. Fritchman became proprie- tors of the distillery. In 1878, James G. Pontefract was added to the firm, and soon after Tinstman & Fritchman sold their interest to Henry C. Frick. The establishment is now under the management of J. G. Pontefract. The buildings contain an aggregate of about one and a half acres of flooring, and the works have a capacity for distilling four hundred bushels of grain every twelve hours.

GIBSONVILLE.

The land on which Gibsonville is located was taken up by John Mugger, Dec. 20, 1773, in the tract of 302 aeres called " Confidence." On the 12th of January, 1774, it was conveyed to John Vanderen, and in the same year it came into possession of Zachariah Con- nell. He, on the 26th of October, 1801, sold it to Joseph Page, who conveyed it to Samuel Page, July 5, 1814. May 1, 1817, it was purchased by Thomas and Joseph Gibson.

In March, 1836, the property of Thomas and Jo- seph Gibson was divided nnder an order of the court, and the site of Gibsonville fell to the heirs of Joseph Gibson. On the Ist of April, 1844, Joshua Gibson

(son of Joseph) purchased the interest of the other heirs in the land.

In the spring of 1860 the only inhabitants of the place which is now Gibsonville were Isaac Carr, Isaac Hale, and Sarah and Elizabeth Hale. In the fall and winter of 1863 the brick-works were constructed there by Jackson Spriggs, of Washington County. In the winter of 1867-68 the Lumber and Stave Company erected here a steam saw-mill, dwelling-house, office, and stables, under the management of Hugh Holmes.

In the spring of 1870 the first store in the place was opened by Edward Collins. A second one was opened soon after by A. B. Hosick, and two years later a third was started by Joshua Gibson. In November, 1870, John Hilkey opened a shoe-shop in a building near the railroad bridge.

Gibsonville was platted and laid out by Joshna Gibson, on the 5th of December, 1870. The popnla- tion of the place on the 13th of January, 1871, was ninety-six persons. In March of the same year the auger-works were built by Thomas St. John.

In May, 1879, Joshua Gibson donated a lot (No. 15) in the town plat to the Presbyterian Church of Con- nellsville, on condition that they should erect a chapel on it within two years. On the 1st of the same month the name of the railroad station at this place was changed back from "White Rock" to "Gibson's." On the 20th of January, 1880, Gibsonville contained a population of 205. It now contains about three hundred inhabitants.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

JOSHUA GIBBS GIBSON.

Mr. Joshua G. Gibson is one of the most esteemed citizens of Fayette County. He resides within the limits of "Gibson's Station," on the line of the Bal- timore and Ohio Railroad, near Connellsville, where he was born, March 15, 1811, in what has been since the downfall of the celebrated Crawford's cabin the oldest house ever built in the region by a white man. The house is made of logs, and was erected about 1776 by William McCormick, and was weather- boarded for the first time about 1840, and now has the appearance of a modern wooden structure. In this house Mr. Gibson spent the years of his early boyhood.

He is of English Quaker stock on the paternal side; on the maternal of New England extraction. His great-grandfather, Thomas Gibson (whose father was a Quaker preacher), came from England in 1728 and settled on Brandywine Creek, Chester Co., Pa., where Mr. Gibson's grandfather, John Gibson, was born, and where he owned grist- and saw-mills on the banks of the creek a mile below the celebrated Brandywine battle-field. He was wont to relate

TheR Davidson 1

, 7,1

405

CONNELLSVILLE BOROUGHI AND TOWNSHIP.

seeing the blood-stained water course by his mills on the day of the battle, which he with his neighbors climbed the hills and witnessed.

In October, 1795, John Gibson removed with his family from Chester County to Fayette County, and settled near what is now the "Union Furnace," and there assisted Isaac Meason and Moses Dillon to erect the second blast-furnace put up west of the Allegheny Mountains. He had five sons and one daughter, of whom Joseph Gibson, the father of Joshua G. Gib- son, was the second child, and was born in Chester County. He was reared mainly in Fayette County, and became an iron-master, though considerably en- gaged in agriculture, owning with his brother a large tract of land. In 1815 he erected the old _Etna Fur- nace in Connellsville, which was in active operation for about thirty years. About it he put up many log and frame houses, which years ago tumbled down in decay. Joseph Gibson died in 1819, when only thirty-nine years of age, but worn out by hard work and exposure to the inclemencies of the climate.

About 1810 he married Anna Gibbs, a native of Connecticut, who had come from that State into Fayette County some years before with a relative. She died about three years after the death of her hus- band, leaving four children, of whom Joshua was the oldest.

Mr. Gibson received his education from an old Englishman, a Revolutionary soldier, who fought on the side of the rebels, and after the war pursued teaching and clerking at the iron-works in Connells- ville. At about sixteen years of age Mr. Gibson went into both the timber business and farming, which he conducted as his chief business for about fifty years. In January, 1824, he moved upon the farm and into the stone house which he still occupies on the bank of the Youghiogheny River. In 1870 he laid out a portion of this farm into village lots, and has erected thereon about eighteen houses him- self, and sold several lots upon which others have builded.

Mr. Gibson has always been an industrious man, domestic in his tastes, temperate, and social in dis- position, but never mingles intimately with his im- mediate social surroundings outside of his family, though noted for his jocularity and salient wit. But withal he is, in some respects, a peculiar man, indulg- ing idiosyncratic tastes at times, as is illustrated by the fact that it has been his habit for a period of over forty years to take annual excursions alone to the Atlantic seaboard, or among the Indians of the lakes or of Canada, among whom he usually spends two or three months, by them being called "the Pennsyl- vania Quaker," or "Wacco," which is understood to be the Indiau translation of the former designation. Visiting with these people Mr. Gibson finds great diversion, and thinks he thereby conserves his health. He returns home invariably buoyant in spirits, find- ing the old home with its comfortable surroundings a

new Eden, wherein he settles down again in quiet and peace. Thus he renews his age and his home, and escapes for a while each year the perplexities of business and the corroding temptations of avarice, and so will, doubtless, lengthen out his green old age far beyond the Scriptural allotment of life to man.

Mr. Gibson was an Old-Line Whig in politics, and is now a Republican, but " never bothered with parti- san politics." In 1852 he married Mrs. Ellen Simon- son, of Connellsville, by whom he has two daughters and a son.

THOMAS R. DAVIDSON.

Among the distinguished men of Fayette County who have passed away, stood eminent in professional and social life, Thomas R. Davidson, who was born in Connellsville, Oct. 6, 1814, the son of William and Sarah Rogers Davidson, both of Scotch-Irish de- scent. William Davidson, the father, was an old iron- master, State senator, and a man of great mental vigor. Thomas R. Davidson received his education at home and at Kenyon College, Ohio, and after being ad- mitted to the bar, practiced law for some years in Uniontown, where he married Isabella Austin, daugh- ter of John M. Austin, then one of the leaders of the bar in his section of the State. Of this union were two children,-Mary D., now wife of P. S. Newmyer, of Connellsville, and William A., at present practic- ing law in Cincinnati, Ohio. Shortly after his mar- riage he located in Connellsville, his old home, where he continued during the remainder of his life in the duties of his profession, and engaged in various en- terprises for the advancement of the community in which he was interested. He was very cautious and reticent in business pursuits, but was quite successful and accumulated a handsome estate. He had no de- sire for political advancement, preferring the more congenial walks of private life, though he once ac- cepted the honorary office of presidential elector. Mr. Davidson died Nov. 3, 1875.

His appearance was very commanding, he being in stature six and one-half feet, finely proportioned, and weighing two hundred and forty-two pounds. Perhaps a more correct estimate of his character and standing could not be given than that expressed in the following extract from a tribute by James Darsie, who knew him long and well :

" His departure from our midst has left an aching void which cannot be filled. No other man can take his place, do the work, and command the confidence that was reposed in him by the entire community. He was indeed the rich man's counselor and the poor man's friend, and was universally esteemed, hon- ored, and beloved as a man of lofty principle, gener- ous and magnanimous impulses, and of spotless in- tegrity. I have rarely met one who had so great an abhorrence of a mean, dishonorable, or dishonest act as he; indeed, the love of truth and justice was in him

40G

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

innate. While in principle stern and unbending, even to severity, in heart and sympathy he was ten- der as a child. He never disappointed the hopes and expectations of his friends, or betrayed a trust com- mitted to his hands. He practiced his profession not so much for profit as to heal the animosities, adjust the difficulties, and restore the peace and confidence of neighbors. I presume I may safely say he settled more disputes by his sagacity, wisdom, and modera- tion than he ever did by the hard process of law, and oftentimes prevailed upon his elients to amicably settle their disputes rather than risk the vexation and uncertainty of an appeal to a legal tribunal. He was, indeed, a peacemaker in the highest sense of that term, and had a far more honest satisfaction in amicably settling a difficulty than in gaining a suit before a judge and jury. In one word, he filled the full out- line of that sentiment happily expressed by one of England's noblest bards,-

"' An honest man's the noblest work of God.'"

The following testimonial to his great worth is quoted from resolutions by the bar of Fayette County : " It is with heartfelt sorrow and unfeigned regret that we are compelled to submit to the loss of one so endeared to us all by long and pleasant associations. His genial, warm, and affectionate disposition, his tender regard for the feelings of others, his nniform courtesy and affability, and, above all, his high sense of honor and strict integrity secured to him the love and respect alike of bench and bar. This bar has lost a sound lawyer, an able counselor and upright man, whose honor and integrity were only equaled by his unassuming modesty and affability."

DR. LUTELLUS LINDLEY.

The Lindleys of America trace their English lin- eage throngh Francis Lindley, who came to this country with his Puritan brethren from Holland in the " Mayflower." Demas Lindley, the grandfather of the late Dr. Lutellns Lindley, migrated from New Jersey, and settled on Ten-Mile Creek, Washington Co., Pa., about the middle of the eighteenth century. There the Rev. Jacob Lindley, Dr. Lindley's father, was born in a block-house, the resort for protection against the Indians of the white settlers of the re- gion. The Rev. Jacob was educated at Princeton College, and early in his ministerial life removed to Athens, Ohio, and took active part in the building and establishment of the Ohio University at that place, of which he held the presidency for over twenty-five years. His oldest child was the Rev. Daniel Lindley, the famous missionary, under the American Board, to South Africa, where he remained for some twenty-seven years. He died in New York at the venerable age of eighty years.

Dr. Lindley, born Feb. 1, 1808, was educated at the Ohio University, under his father's charge, and was

prepared for graduation at the early age of sixteen, but on account of ill health deferred it for two years, till 1826, when he went to Virginia, and there taught a private school composed of the children of several neighboring planters. In 1831 he betook himself to Ten-Mile Creek, read medieine with Dr. Henry Blatch- ley, a daughter of whom, Maria, he married in 1833; and in March, 1834, he removed to Connellsville, where he practiced medicine with great success for about forty-seven years, and died Oct. 25, 1881.

Dr. Lindley was singularly devoted to his profes- sion, but enjoyed a great reputation, not only for professional skill, but for urbanity, a generous hospi- tality, and serupulous integrity, commanding the affection as well as confidence of his neighbors and a wide circle of acquaintances.

His first wife, Maria Blatchley, died in June, 1841, leaving a son, Henry Spencer Lindley, now a physi- cian practicing in Perryville, Allegheny Co., Pa. In July, 1842, Dr. Lindley married Mary A. Wade, daughter of James Wade, of Fayette County, by whom he had four sons and one daughter, all of whom are now living save the first-born son, Clark, who was accidentally killed while a member of the junior class of Allegheny College, Meadville, in the twenty-first year of his age. The daughter, Carrie Lou, was graduated at Beaver Female College in 1863, and in 1864 became the wife of Rev. C. W. Smith, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and at- tached to Pittsburgh Conference. Lutellns W., Lutel- lus' second living son, graduated at Jefferson Medical College, and practices in partnership with his half- brother, Dr. Henry Spencer Lindley, before named. Frank M., the third son, studied medicine at the same college, and practices his profession in Connellsville. Charles D., the youngest son, resides in Butler City, Montana, engaged in mining.

DANIEL ROGERS DAVIDSON.

Somewhere in Beaver County, Pa., near Brighton, we believe, now resides, and of Pittsburgh makes his business centre, Col. Daniel R. Davidson, who belongs rather to the State of Pennsylvania than to Fayette County, in which he was born, and where he passed perhaps fifty years of residence, and in which county he still holds large business and proprietary interests and spends considerable time, a sketch of whom it is our lot to prepare for the history of Fayette County.

Mr. Davidson took great interest in the history of his native county during its preparation for the press, and rendered willing aid to those who were engaged in it whenever he could, contributing to whatever depart- ment of the work he was requested to assist in until a biography of himself was demanded, when the proposing interviewer was met with the polite but positive refusal of Mr. Davidson to furnish any item whatever regarding himself, he easily baffling the inquirer with the naïve remark that he never knew

Lindley

407

CONNELLSVILLE BOROUGH AND TOWNSHIP.

anything about himself, never understood himself as fear being that this uncomprehended hoy would never amount to anything of himself, and would ever be " a ne'er-do-well," he was at that age taken from the school which he cannot be said to have "attended" and banished "from Rome,"-that is, sent into quar- ters over which the central power or home govern- ment held empire, but of which the boy was given boy or man, and could not, therefore, say anything of himself; in fact, he would prefer that nothing be said, and he left no uncertainty about his quiet but firm declaration that whatever might be written of him for the history must be obtained from others. How- ever, persistent inquiry evoked from him the state- ment that he believed himself to have been born at : experimental charge,-a sort of procuratorship. It was Connellsville, Jan. 12, 1820; but subsequent inquiry of others casts doubt upon this date, and leaves the writer unable to say whether Mr. Davidson was born a year or two before or a year or two after that time.

Mr. Davidson is so markedly sui generis in char- acter, as everybody who has his acquaintance knows, or should know, that it is quite unessential to men- tion herein, as in biographical sketches in general, the mortal stock of which he is a derivative; and yet it would seem that somewhat of his physical and spir- itnal nature is inherited ; as his father, the late Hon. William Davidson, of Connellsville, is represented by old citizens who knew him well as a man of large mould and extraordinary mental powers, as well as of a very sensitive and potent moral nature (mixed with a degree of religious sentiment which in the last years of his life made him an extreme though con- sistent zealot) ; while his mother, Sarah Rogers, some years since deceased, is pictured as a lady of remark- able gifts, a woman of great energy and extreme per- spicacity.

William Davidson was born in Carlisle, Cumber- land Co., Pa., Feb. 14, 1783, and came into Fayette County about 1808. He was at first manager of the Laurel Furnace, and afterwards an iron-master at Break Neck. He was several times a member of the State Legislature, at one time president of the House, and was also a member of the Senate. He was highly esteemed as an active, intelligent, and honest legisla- tor. It appears that the first or immigrant David- son ancestor of William, came from the north of Ire- land and lived in Londonderry during the famous siege.

Mr. and Mrs. William Davidson were the parents of three sons and two daughters. Daniel R. was their fourth child. It is learned that he went to a common school in his extreme young years ; but he was never known by his schoolmates to study any- thing. The every-day mystery to them was how, with- out study, "Dan" got to know more about every- thing than did they who studied hard. Of course the hoys he played with had no capacities to com- prehend him. They knew nothing of him any more than they did about the mysteries of the attraction of gravitation when they fell off the dunce-block, or why the water ran down the Yonghiogheny, gliding past their school-house.

Frank always, but not bold in utterance, Daniel Davidson grew up to sixteen years of age, as little understood by his father, it is evident (and perhaps by his mother too), as he understood himself; and the

an act of despair on the part of his father when he made, as he thought, a fixture of Dan on the David- son farm, north of the borough of Connellsville, which farm it was supposed Dan would need all his life to glean necessary food from. So little did the paternal mind understand the boy. But, lo! Dan, who now had a world of his own to move in, at once began to exhibit extraordinary executive ability. He greatly improved the farm, and reaped a revenue from it which surprised everybody ; and then it was that his career commenced. The peculiar, great-souled boy had with one stride stepped from youth to mature manhood, and was already putting to himself large problems of a practical character, and projecting in his clear head how they should be solved,-problems concerning the public weal and involving the ele- ments of his own private fortune.

It was at this time of his life, when near twenty-one years of age, that he became interested in the project of a railroad from Pittsburgh to Connellsville (the present Pittsburgh Division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad). He threw his great energy into that mat- ter, against the advice and solicitation of his hopeless friends and even the demands of his father, the people regarding him as little less than wildl. But he kept straight on courageously and with immense industry in his course. He foresaw what none others perceived, the vast advantages to the county and to himself of the project; and tirelessly he pursued his path, securing rights of way from this and that one through his earnest eloquence in pieturing the bright future, and from others by sagacious conditional bargains ; and got charters, too, by piecemeal, fight- ing and out-plotting all the old heads in opposition. He, let it be remembered, was the only man (and then an untried boy) who had the energy to do this tremendous work. At this matter of the railroad he spent some five years, not, however, neglecting his farm improvement and culture, and attending mean- while to other important things which had come to his hands to do. At last the road was built and equipped. Crowds gathered at Connellsville on the day on which the first train ran into the borough, bearing an illustrious Pennsylvania protectionist on the running-board of the engine, and by his side Daniel Davidson, who, as the train stopped in the midst of the people, shouted, " Here's the end of the Pittsburgh Road, with 'Tariff Andy' on its back !" and the doubters, who of course jeered and con- demned him years before, now also of course ap- plauded him to the echo, and literally bared their

408

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

heads before him. Cannon were fired, and the great uproar of praise shook the sky. William Davidson, the father of Dan, the banished, " luckless wight," looked on in silence that day, and then turned away, walking speechless into his house near by. Perhaps he grieved over his wild boy's victory, perhaps he was proud. Since that day sensible people have not questioned Daniel Davidson's judgment, his prog- nostic powers, his great capacity and energy.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 92

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