History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 121

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1532

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CHRISTOPHER EIPPER, farmer, Dallas, was born in Germany, on the Rhine, April 5, 1814, son of John and Catharine (Brunk) Eipper, both of whom were natives of that country. 'Christopher came to this country August 8, 1840, landing in New York. In his native country he learned the wheelwright trade, at which he worked forty years. He spent several years of his life in Wyoming, and is perfectly familiar with all the historic scenes in that part of the Valley. On September 22, 1843, he married Miss Lucinda, daughter of Frederick Atherholt, by whom he has had ten children, all of whom grew to maturity, and nine of whom are now living. The following is a brief record of the sons: Fred is out in some of the western States taking care and charge of the famous trotting horse, "Extel", F. B. is a farmer, who, in conjunction with his brother W. R., is working the homestead (the father having retired); H. F. is captain of a ferry boat in New York; Charles L. is a painter, and works for the D. L. & W. R. R. Co .; A. T. is a bookkeeper in the D. L. & W. Car Shops; A. J. is a blacksmith and shoeing foreman for the Empire Coal Com- pany; they are all worthy citizens. In 1844 Christopher removed from Wyoming to Dallas, where he bought a farm of 103 acres on which he moved, and which has been cleared and improved to such an extent that it is now the finest farm in the town. His house is large and commodious, his barns extensive and well filled. All these improvements he has himself made with his own hands. He has held various offices in his town, which he has discharged with credit. He is a Democrat politically.

JOHN J. ELBERT, proprietor of the " Germania House," Sugar Notch, was born in Germany, March 23, 1852, and is a son of Anthony and Mary E. (Friebis) Elbert, both of whom died when he was young. He studied surgery, and was three years in a hospital during the French war. He then learned the barber's trade, and in 1870 came to America where he followed the same successively at New York (eight years), Brooklyn (one year), Newark, N. J. (nine months), New Haven, Conn. (two years), Wilkes-Barre (six years), South Wilkes-Barre (uineteen months), then in Hanover township where he added confectionery and cigars, and also the business" of life insurance. In 1890 he removed to Sugar Notch, and engaged in his present business. Mr. Elbert was married September 8, 1879, to Miss Catherine Ruckels, and they had one child, Adam, who died at the age of six months. Mr. Elbert's wife died May 15, 1881, and he was afterward married July 8, 1886, to Miss Mary Tucker. Mrs. Elbert is a member of the Catholic Church; he is a member of the A. O. K. of M. C. and in his political views is a Republican.

ISAAC ELSTON, farmer, Lehman township, was born in Minisink, Orange Co., N.

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

Y., March 22, 1827, and was reared and educated in Lehman township. He is a son of Samuel and Nancy (Baird) Elston, both of whom were born in Minisink, N. Y. Samuel was a blacksmith by trade, in conjunction with which he also worked a farm of fifty acres. He moved to this county in 1836, locating in Lehman township, where he purchased a farm of ninety-six acres, on which were some improvements, to which he added, at various times, eighty acres more. This he improved and beautified by hard labor and economy; his life was one of industry, and his sur- roundings, at the time of his death, which occurred in 1853, at the age of sixty-seven, showed that he was a thrifty farmer. His family consisted of ten children, nine of whom grew to maturity, and three of whom are now living. Isaac is the youngest of the family, has always worked on a farm, but has never enjoyed very good health. He now lives on the old homestead where his father died. On June 2, 1850, at the age of twenty-three, he married, in Dallas, Miss Amy, daughter of Jonathan and Lucinda Hustead. By this union there were born four children, three sons and one daughter: Levi, Benjamin F., Fanny M. and one deceased. Levi married Miss Rebecca Jenkins, by whom he has three children; Benjamin F. married Miss Hen- rietta Hoover, by whom he has three children; Fannie M. married in 1873, at the age of nineteen, John W. Bid well, by whom she had two sons: William H., born in 1875, and Clarence R., born in 1879; Mr. Bidwell dying, she afterward married Mahlor Davenport, late of Company E, Fifty-seventh, N. Y. Volunteers. Mr. Daven- port entered the army August 14, 1861, serving three years, after which he was honorably discharged, and he now enjoys a pension for disability of both hands. Mr. Elston is a general farmer, thrifty and industrious, a loyal citizen and a good neigh- bor. He and his wife are consistent members of the M. E. Chureh. Politically, he is a Democrat.

BENJAMIN SNYDER EMORY was born in Washington, D. C., December 17, 1867, son of Rev. Benjamin B. and Mary H. Emory. The father died when our subject was a child of four, and the mother, with her family of two sons and three daughters, moved from Holly Springs, Miss., where they then resided, to West Pittston. Seven years in the public schools of that place, and a course in the Wyoming Commer- cial College, completed his schooling. After leaving the business college he was employed for three years in the Western Forwarding office of the L. V. R. R., at Coxton. During the next two years he was employed as traveling correspondent for the People, a Prohibition paper of Scranton. As this employment was more honorable than lucrative, he embarked, in the spring of 1892, in the steam laundry business with W. C. Tench. After running but three weeks, the building in which the laundry was located was destroyed by fire, the laundry plant, however, being saved. Mr. Emory then purchased Mr. Tench's interest, and located in the build- ing owned by his father-in-law, W. H. Jackson, with whom he associated himself. The business, which had hitherto been conducted in Pittston at a loss, has, under the present management, constantly increased. The firm have manifested a spirit of enterprise and push, and have constantly improved their facilities. On Septem- ber 8, 1891, Mr. Emory was united in marriage with Miss Elloma R. Jackson, and one child, a son, has been born to them.

GEORGE W. ENGLE, wholesale dealer in flour, feed, grain, etc., Hazleton. This enterprising and successful young business man was born at Sybertsville, Pa., June 1, 1850, and is the eldest of four children of John and Rose (Fritz) Engle, also natives of Pennsylvania. Mr. Engle was educated in the public schools of this county, and Bethlehem, also at the Tuscarora Academy and the Bloomsburg State Normal School. He prepared himself for the profession of civil engineer, and followed that vocation six years, during which time his business took him through the principal States in the Union, aud also through many of the provinces of Canada. At the end of these six years he returned to Hazleton, where he purchased and has since successfully conducted the feed store then owned by J. A. Schreck, which business is now thoroughly established, and is in a thriving condition. Mr. Engle is so well known and respected in business, as well as social circles, that personal

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

commendation is unnecessary. He was married in 1877 to Caroline E., daughter of James Rhodes, a resident of Harvey's Lake, and four children were born to this union, viz. : Jessie (deceased), Edna, Stewart and James. Mr. Engle is an independent voter, and his family attend the Presbyterian Church.

HOWARD KEIM ENGLE, farmer, P. O. Sybertsville, was born in Sugar Loaf town- ship November 8, 1862, son of John and Anna (Keim) Engle. His paternal grand- father was William Engle, whose parents were among the pioneers of Sugar Loaf township. The wife of William Engle was Mary Davis, and their children were as follows: Rachel (Mrs. Daniel Yeager), John, Sylvester, Eliza (Mrs. Gideon D. Klinger), Ellen (Mrs. Elijah McMurtrie), Moses D., Stephen, Sarah (Mrs. Henry Dryfoos), Wallace, Lizzie and Charles. Of these, John was a native of Columbia county, Pa. He spent most of his life in Sugar Loaf township, where he was engaged in farming and lumbering, dying there August 18, 1874, at the age of fifty years. John Engle was twice married; his first wife was Rose Fritz, by whom he had four children: George W., Clara P. (Mrs. Josiah Schreck), Albert A. and Emma J. (Mrs. Newton J. Beam); his second wife was a daughter of John and Lydia (Musselman) Kein, of Sugar Loaf township, and by her he had two children, Howard K. and Estelle F. Mr. Engle united with the Presbyterian Church at the age of seventeen, and was an elder in the same for many years; in politics he was a Republican. His widow and children - Howard K. and Estelle F. - reside on the homestead.

STEPHEN D. ENGLE, whose scientific and mechanical inventions have given him a national, if not a world-wide, fame, was born in Sugar Loaf township, Luzerne Co., Pa., December 18, 1837. When young he enjoyed no other advantages for education than were afforded by the common schools of that day, but he has been an inveterate reader, especially of scientific works, and has thus acquired rare intel- ligence. Since arriving at maturity he has been a resident of Hazleton, in his native county, where he married a daughter of Joseph Grenawalt, a wealthy and public- spirited citizen of that borough. When the rebels entered Pennsylvania in 1863, Mr. Engle served with the " emergency men" until the soil of his native State was no longer pressed by hostile feet. Mr. Engle's father was a watchmaker as well as a farmer, and the subject of this sketch became the leading watchmaker and jeweler of Hazleton. He also studied and for a number of years practiced dentistry in connection with his business as a jeweler. One of his inventions is "Engle's Pat- ent for Securing Porcelain Teeth to Gold and Silver Plates." The "Association for the Protection of the Rights of Dentists" officially approved of this device, and has- tened to secure an assignment and abandonment to the public of the patent. Another invention of intrinsic worth is "Engle's Dust Proof Watch Case," affording such protection to the movement as would not now be dispensed with by manufacturers of the best watches. The first astronomical, musical and apostolic clock, ever built in the United States, was invented and built by Mr. Engle, and it has never been equaled in automatic wonders or in the scientific accuracy of the astronomical mechanism. So absorbed was Mr. Engle in the planning and construction of this clock, that he afterward wrote to a friend: "During the last year before its comple- tion I had no night or day, but slept when I was sleepy and ate when I was hungry, without any regard to old Sol." It was perhaps fortunate for him that he was a disciple of Nimrod and Izaak Walton, for without the recreation found in his hunt- ing and fishing excursions, he would probably have succumbed long ago to an excess of brain work and confinement to rooms filled with machinery, crucibles, metals and acids. Capt. Jacob Reid has exhibited this clock to crowded houses in every part of the United States and Canada. A description of this grand piece of mechanism, with its forty-eight moving figures, its movements illustrating day and night, changes of seasons, ebbing and flowing of tides and other phenomena, can not here be given. While Joel Cook, one of the editors of the Public Ledger, of Philadelphia, was visiting Strasbourg (France) in 1878, he saw the renowned Strasbourg clock, and in his book entitled "A Holiday Trip to Europe," he makes the following comparison:

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

" The Engle clock, which has been exhibited in Philadelphia, is not so large, and yet does all that this clock does, and much more, and does it better." The latest invention of Mr. Engle is "Engle's Tellurion." For illustrating celestial, as well as terrestrial phenomena, this is far in advance of any apparatus hitherto constructed. It is the only apparatus yet in existence that shows the true motion of the earth around the sun in an actual ellipse. The parallelism of the axis is at all times pre- served, and all the phenomena of the changes of day and night and of the seasons, the greater length of time the sun remains north than south of the equator, etc., are clearly shown. This instrument shows the length of the day and night at any season of the year in any latitude, as well as the heavenly constellations visible at any hour in any and every season of the year. The moon is seen in its gibbous and cres- cent phases, as well as with a full enlightened hemisphere and in total darkness, its place being a mask or hollow hemisphere with the convex surface thereof black. This invention has attracted the attention of astronomers and teachers. Parties have endeavored to negotiate with Mr. Engle with a view to the manufacture of this improved tellurion, but the inventor has thus far been engaged during his leisure moments in considering further improvements in the machine, and has not enter- tained any of these propositions. He now devotes his entire attention to the manu- facturing of fine jewelry, and, in fact, is the only real manufacturer in his line in Luzerne county. Stephen D. Engle is universally recognized by his neighbors as an upright, honorable and kind-hearted man. No case of suffering or distress ever came to his knowledge without enlisting his sympathy, and to awaken his sympathy is to open his purse strings.

THOMAS ENGLISH, of Gorman & English, plumbers, etc., Wilkes-Barre, was born at Silver Lake, Susquehanna Co., Pa., January 3, 1846, a son of Thomas and Ellen (Sexton) English, who were among the early settlers of that county. The father of our subject was a farmer at Silver Lake, where he resided until the time of his death; he had a family of thirteen children, nine of whom grew to maturity. Our subject was reared in Susquehanna county until sixteen years of age. In 1862 he engaged with the Pennsylvania Gravity Co., in what is now Lackawanna county, where he remained until 1864. He enlisted in Company G, Two Hundred and Four- teenth Pennsylvania Volunteers for one year, and was discharged at the expiration of his time. He then returned to Susquehanna county and engaged in farming for three years, and in 1869 located in Pittston, this county, where he was employed as conductor by the Pennsylvania Coal Company on the Gravity Road, in which capacity he served up to 1885. In the fall of 1884 he was elected commissioner for Luzerne county, and re-elected in the fall of 1887, serving six years with credit to himself and his constituents. Since April, 1889, he has been a member of the firm of Gorman & English, plumbers, gas-fitters and dealers in stoves, ranges and boil- ers, Wilkes-Barre. On February 22, 1876, Mr. English married Mary F., daugh- ter of Thomas and Mary Cotter, of Bradford county, Pa .; they have one son, Thomas F. Mrs. English died January 13, 1879. Mr. English is a member of the Catholic Church; he is one of the charter members of the W. G. Nugent Post No. 245, G. A. R., of Pittston; in politics he is a Democrat, and served as chairman of the county commmittee two years.

THOMAS ENGLISH, farmer, P. O. Carverton, was born, October 10, 1856, reared and educated in Wyoming. He is the son of James and Ellen (O'Neil) English, both of whom were born in Ireland, they emigrated to this country about 1842 and settled in Wyoming. By occupation James is a mason, and has plied his trade in the Valley with marked success. He is now a resident of Wyoming, and is sixty- five years of age. His family, by two marriages, consists of ten children, seven of whom are now living. Thomas is the third child by the first marriage. In early life he learned the plasterer's trade, at which he worked for fifteen years in various parts of the valley with the same success which attended his father. At the age of twenty he married, in October, 1876, Miss Callie, daughter of Dyer and Mary Ben- nett. They have four children: Edward, Jennie, Charles and Harry, all living.

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In 1889 they removed onto a farm of seventy-two acres situated a few miles north of Wyoming, formerly the property of the Mullisons. Mr. English is an active, wide- awake man, full of business and snap, and sure to make his mark in life. During his residence in Wyoming he was chosen a member of the borough council, and while a resident of the township he was elected supervisor. This shows him to be a chosen favorite in town and county. His wife, Mrs. Callie (Bennett) English, was born in this county in 1861. Politically Mr. English is a liberal Democrat.

GEORGE W. ENTERLINE, chandler, Wilkes-Barre, was born in Tamaqua, Schuyl- kill Co., Pa., October 15, 1854, a son of Edward and Eva (Beyerly) Enterline, natives of Roaring Creek, Dauphin Co., Pa., and of German descent. For thirty years his father conducted a tannery at Tamaqua, and in 1876 he located in Wilkes- Barre, where he embarked in the chandlery business, in which he continued up to his death which occurred May 2, 1887. He reared a family of ten children: Sarah E. (deceased), Clara (deceased), James (deceased), Angie (deceased wife of Jerry Enterline), George W., Sallie (Mrs. C. Ben Johnson), Emma (Mrs. George Steidle), Edward, Willie (deceased) and Charles (deceased). Our subject was reared and educated in Tamaqua, Pa., spent one year in the shoe and leather finding business, at Pottsville, Pa., and then served five years apprenticeship at the machinist's trade. On his father's death, he succeeded to the chandlery business, which he continued alone until August 19, 1891, when he admitted his brother-in-law, George Steidle, as a partner, the business having since been conducted under the firm style Enter- line & Steidle. Mr. Enterline married December 19, 1879, Mary, daughter of Thomas Gorman, of Wilkes-Barre, and by her he had two sons, both deceased. Our subject is a member of the K. of P. and K. of M. C. ; politically he is a Repub- lican, and has served on both city and county committees.

JAMES W. ERNEST, principal of the Hazleton Business College, Hazleton. This gentleman was born in Warren, Ohio, February 23, 1867, and is a son of Henry and Harriet (Southworth) Ernest, also natives of Ohio. Our subject received a school training in his native town, together with a higher education obtained in the North- eastern Ohio Normal School, and the Oberlin (Ohio) Business College. At the latter place he took a full course in business and penmanship. After completing his busi- ness course, our subject taught in various prominent business colleges in Ohio and Pennsylvania until March 4, 1889, when he came to Hazleton and established the Hazleton Business College, under the supervision of the Wilkes-Barre Business College. It was conducted by these parties until November, 1889, when Professor Ernest assumed entire control of the school. Under his management this institu- tion has, in a very short time, advanced rapidly to the front in public favor, and is now one of the largest, best patronized and finest equipped colleges in this locality. The course of instruction embraces Commercial Law Business; Arithmetic; Business Correspondence; Penmanship; Spelling; Bookkeeping in all its forms as applied to the several branches of business; Business Practice, which includes actual transac- tions in buying and selling goods; Banking and, in fact, real transactions in all departments. Short-hand and type-writing are also taught by experienced teachers. Although founded but a short time, yet graduates from this institute may be found in all parts of the country, filling responsible positions, and commanding good salaries. Prof. Ernest is a gentleman of large practical business experience, and has been a teacher of commercial branches for many years. The large number of patrons, as is shown by the college register, is the strongest commendation of the popularity of this flourishing institution.

M. FRANKLIN EROH, teacher, Dorrance, was born in Dorrance township, this county, August 22, 1869, a son of Matthias and Maria (Spade) Eroh, both of whom were born in Luzerne county, Pa., the former in Hollenback township, the latter in Dorrance. Matthias Eroh is a son of Matthias, Sr .. and Catherine (Boyer) Eroh, both of whom were born in Northampton county. Matthias, Sr., removed to this county when a young man, locating in Hollenback township, where he owned 400 acres of land, seventy-five of which he cleared during his life-time; he was a hard-

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

working, industrious and honest man. He died in 1853, after an uneventful life, at. the age of fifty-six years; his wife died in 1856, aged fifty-five years. Their family consisted of fourteen children, eleven of whom grew to maturity, seven now living. Matthias Eroh, Jr., began his earthly career in Hollenback, where he lived as a. farmer until his marriage with Miss Spade, December 25, 1854. After this event he removed to Dorrance township, where he now resides on a farm of forty-seven acres, besides which he owns two other lots, sixty-seven and eighteen acres, respectively. He has held some offices in the township with credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents. Politically he is a Democrat. Mr. and Mrs. Eroh had a family of eight children, of whom they reared seven, viz .: Elmer P., Charles M., Josiah W., Peter W., M. Franklin, Oscar C. and Emma J., the latter of whom married Joshua Stout. . M. Franklin received his primary education at the common schools of Dor- rance township, after which he spent four terms at Kutztown Seminary. He has already taught three terms of school successfully. He is a promising young man, who will yet be heard from in the line of his calling.

JOHN N. EUSTICE, retired mine foreman, Plainsville, was born in the parish of Crown, Cornwall, England, March 17, 1827, and is a son of John and Christian. (Nicholas) Eustice, the former of whom was superintendent of copper and lead mines. They reared a family of seven children, five of whom are living, and John N. is the eldest. Our subject came to America in 1846, and joined a party which was exploring for copper on Lake Superior in the employ of Mr. Conyngham, of New York, with Drs. Hoten and Elliott as guides. He was then variously engaged in sinking shafts, slopes, and gang-ways, at Eagle River, Isle Royal; Flemington, N. J .; Rocky Hill Copper Mine, N. J .; St. Clair and New Boston, Pa .; Bristol, Conn .; Tamaqua, Perkiomen, Llewellyn and Mackersburg, Pa .; at the two latter he worked breasts, and contracted in taking out coal; at the Rocky Hill Copper Mine, N. J., he worked under his father, whom he met there for the first time in America. He then came to Luzerne county, sank the Empire Shaft, and then performed the feat of taking the water out of the Patton Shaft, which had baffled all previous efforts to do so. He was then made superintendent of that shaft, and a year later,. when John Mitchell took it by contract, he was engaged as outside foreman for a short time; then contracted in taking out coal at Buttonwood for one year. In 1861 he came to Plains, and was in the employ of John Mitchell, as outside foreman, till 1872, after which he was foreman at the Enterprise Shaft for several years; later he was breaker-boss at Port Bowkley till 1889, when he was compelled to retire from active life on account of defective eyesight. Mr. Eustice married Mary Raugh, of Tamaqua, Pa., whose grandfather was in the Massacre of 1778. Twenty children were born to this union, eight of whom are living, viz. : Elizabeth A. (Mrs. John Brew, Forty Fort), Mary E. (Mrs. John Bartlett, in Pittston), John R., Robert N., Susan (Mrs. William Fuller, in Plainsville), William P., Thomas H. and Francis B., the last two being breaker-bosses at Laflin and residing at home. Mr. Eustice is a member of the I. O. O. F .; politically he has always given his support to the Republican party.

BENJAMIN EVANS, miller and justice of the peace, Nescopeck, was born in Briar Creek township, Columbia Co., Pa., July 14, 1820, a son of David and Nancy (Bon- ham) Evans. His paternal grandfather, John Evans, a Welsh Quaker, together with his brother James, they being both millwrights by trade, came from near Phila- delphia to this county, becoming pioneers of the vicinity of Berwick, and erected several mills for a wealthy man named Rittenhouse. John Evans married Martha. Thomas, a sister of Mrs. Nathan Beach (whose maiden name was Susan Thomas), one of the first settlers of Salem township, and for whose husband John Evans erected mills at Beach Haven and Huntington. He finally settled in Canada, where he also built mills, and died there. His children were David, Thomas, Josiah and Barbara (Mrs. Mark Mendenhall). The eldest son, David, was supposed to have- been born in Salem township, this county, in 1790. In 1838 he purchased the mill property now operated by our subject, and died there in 1875. His wife was a

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History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 121

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.) Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1532

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1532