USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of Northampton County [Pennsylvania] and the grand valley of the Lehigh, Volume II > Part 47
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(VI) Francis M. Beahm, son of Henry and Margaret (Smith) Beahm, was born in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, now resides at No. 313 North Main street, Bethlehem, has resided in Bethlehem since 1890. He married Mar- garet Jane Nickum, born in Lower Saucon township, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, September 25, 1855, daughter of Jacob Nickum, born in Lower Saucon, April 14, 1822, and his wife, Mary (Ache) Nickum, born in Lower Saucon, February 6, 1835, died October 13, 1892, married, April 12, 1855. Jacob and Mary (Ache) Nickum were the parents of the following children : Margaret Jane, married Francis M. Beahm; Charles A., married Henrietta J. Wallace ; John A .; Mary A .; Oliver A., married Hattie Clark ; Benjamin F., married Kate M. Schneider; Jacob H .; Isaac L., married Rosa E. Kichline; Carrie V., married Robert Rhoads ; Laura M. Nickum. Francis M. and Mar- garet Jane (Nickum) Beahm were the parents of : Arthur C., with Wilson & Company. meat packers, of Chicago; Frank, whose career is herein traced ; William, plumber, of Philadelphia; Mabel C., married Harvey W. Freeman ; Laura, married Warren Musselman; Earl, of Bethlehem; Mary and John, of Bethlehem ; and three children who died in infancy.
This branch of the Ache family traces back to Susanna Boehm, daughter of Philip and Anna Barbara (Schreiber) Boehm, granddaughter of Anthony William and Hannah Philis Boehm, and great-granddaughter of Rev. John Philip and Anna Maria (Scherrer) Boehm. Susanna Boehm, born June 14, 1776, died December 19, 1846. She married Jacob Ochs, born in Upper Mil- ford township, then in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1776, died May, 1866. He was a son of A. Matthias and Rosina ( Schwrnk) Ochs, who came to Pennsylvania from Germany about the year 1747, and settled in Upper Milford township. Their first child, born July 18, 1796, died May 25, 1883, married John Ache, son of Ludwig Ache, and both are buried in Lower Saucon church graveyard.
(VII) Frank Beahm, son of Francis M. and Margaret Jane (Nickum) Beahm, was born in Hellertown, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, April 3, 1881. He was educated in the public schools of Hellertown and Bethlehem, finishing both, and a course at Bethlehem. Business School. His brother, Arthur C., was in the meat business in Bethlehem, and after leaving school Frank learned the business under his brother's direction. About the year 1903 he began business for himself in Bethlehem, and after conducting it for six years he withdrew and accepted appointment as a government inspector of meat at Pittsburgh and Allentown, Pennsylvania. He held that position two years, then resigned and re-entered business life, purchasing the meat mar- ket owned by T. H. Ritter. In 1915 he bought his present location on East Broad street, Bethlehem, and there conducts a high-class meat market, mod- ern in its appointments and fixtures. He also has a branch store at Broad and High streets. He has been very successful in his enterprise, and is one
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of the substantial business men of Bethlehem. He has recently organized the Bethlehem Packing & Supply Company, and is preparing to build and operate a packing house which will cost about $100,000, when ready for business. Mr. Beahm is a member of Bethlehem Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons; the Modern Woodmen of America ; and Grace Lutheran Church. In politics he is a Republican.
Mr. Beahm married, August 27, 1902, Mary E. Cope, daughter of John and Ida (Trexler) Cope. They are the parents of four children: Kenneth C., born July 25, 1903; Pauline Margaret, November 13, 1904; Doris Elizabeth, November 16, 1905; Francis John, October II, 19II.
AUSTIN DAVIS MIXSELL-One of the old time physicians of Easton, Pennsylvania, was Dr. Joseph Mixsell, representative of a family old in North- ampton county, its members among the very early settlers of Easton and Williams township. Lieutenant Philip Mixsell, of this branch, formed a com- pany of Williams township men which served in the Revolutionary War. The coat-of-arms of the family is as follows :
Arms-Quarterly, I and 4 sable, a lion rampant or, the one in I rampant to the sinister ; 2 and 3 gules, a bend argent charged with a monse courant sable.
Crest-Between two wings, the dexter per fess argent and gules, the sinister sable and or, a lion issuant affronte of the fourth, crowned gold.
Dr. Joseph Mixsell, born May 24, 1846, a son of Theodore and Matilda Mixsell, was a graduate of the medical department of the University of Penn- sylvania, long a prominent practitioner in Easton, and the incumbent ot numerous official positions. For several terms he was president of the North- ampton County Medical Society, served as coroner and physician to the Northampton County Prison, and was held in high esteem as citizen and physician. Late in life he moved to Philadelphia, where his death occurred .. His wife, Emily (Davis) Mixsell, died in Easton. Their son, Austin Davis Mixsell, returned to Northampton and spent the last quarter of a century of his life in Bethlehem, becoming an important official of the Bethlehem Steel Company, an officer of such high position that during the hour of his funeral all work in the great plant was stopped and for ten minutes the employees and officials stood with bowed heads in memory of their fallen vice-president and president of a subsidiary company. He was a young man, but little over forty-twc, yet had accomplished worthily, and for many years had been the trusted business associate of that body of able men constituting the Bethle- hem Steel Company.
Austin Davis Mixsell was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, October 20, 1873, and died in the city of Bethlehem, January 15, 1916. He obtained his early education in the Easton schools, and after the family moved to Phila- delphia he continued his studies in the Penn Charter School of that city, an institution founded by the Society of Friends. For a year after leaving school he was employed in the law office of Franklin B. McGowen, of Philadelphia, but in 1892 he returned to his native county, locating in Bethlehem, where he accepted a position in the freight office of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, remaining there for six years. In 1898 he entered the service of the Bethlehem Steel Company as an attache of the general superintendent's office, and was assigned to duty in the sales department. He advanced rap- idly, and as representative of that department in New York City he com- pleted so fine a record that in 1909 he was promoted to the highest position in the sales department of the company, general sales agent. For six years he was head of the sales department, then, in 1915, he was elected a member of the board of directors and vice-president of the company. When later the Dietrich & Hawey. Machine Company, at Baltimore, was absorbed by the Betlilchem Steel Company, Mr. Mixsell was made president of that company,
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an office he filled until his death. In all the positions he was called upon to fill he displayed high ability, and in his private life, honor and integrity dis- tinguished him. He was a man of genial, friendly, and generous nature and one whom to know was to love and esteem. He was one of the strong men of the Bethlehem Steel Company, and in warmest eulogy his associates of that company testify to his worth.
He was a member of the Union League and Manufacturers' Club, of Philadelphia; the Railroad Engineers' and Lawyers' Club, of New York City ; the Pomfret Club, of Easton ; the Northampton County Country Club ; the Lehigh Country Club, of Allentown; the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania, the American Society for Testing Materials, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Iron and Steel Institute (executive com- mittee), and the American Steel Founders' Society.
Mr. Mixsell married Anna G. Garis, daughter of William Edwin and Ellen L. (Micke) Garis, of Easton. Mrs. Mixsell survives her husband with their three children, Edwin Leighton, John Davis, and Eleanor Josephine.
The Garis family for a century have been noted for their skill as cabinet makers, and their coat-of-arms is as follows :
Arms-Or, three chevronels gules.
Crest-A leopard rampant or.
Valentine Garis, progenitor of the Garis family, founded a store and fac- tory in Easton in 1785, a business continued by his son, Samuel, and grand- son, William E., until 1892. William Edwin Garis was born in South Easton, September 26, 1849, and as a youth attended the public schools and the Poughkeepsie (New York) College of Business, entering his father's estab- lishment after the completion of his studies, and learning furniture designing and manufacture. In an emergency caused by the illness of one of the travel- ing salesmen of the house, he was sent to cover the territory while still in his 'teens. His first order, an unusually large one, was given contingent upon his ability to duplicate an elaborate suite of furniture for his customer, a condition his trained skill as a designer enabled him to meet with complete satisfaction. This was the beginning of his long and successful experience as a furniture salesman, although he subsequently acquired the ownership and assumed the management of the business, which enjoyed a substantial pros- perity until 1892, when a nervous breakdown compelled him to retire from business responsibilities. He made his home on a farm in Forks township after his retirement, following agriculture along scientific lines, later manag- ing Austin D. Mixsell's Bucks county farm. In 1915 he became a member of the firm of Garis & Shiner, and since that time has engaged in real estate dealings in Bethlehem, their firm a highly rated and well-known organization in the city. Mr. Garis is a member of the Bethlehem Real Estate Board, the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, and is a communicant of Grace Lutheran Church. William Edwin Garis married, June 26, 1872, Ellen L., daughter of Reuben P. and Margaret (Serfass) Micke, her father for many years a polit- ical leader of Northampton county and an office holder in many important capacities in city and State. Ellen L. (Micke) Garis died April 1, 1912. She was a woman whose life was rich in good works in church and charity, and her memory is affectionately cherished in her wide circle of friends. William Edwin and Ellen L. (Micke) Garis were the parents of five daughters : Anna G., Rosa C., Margaret E., Florence C., and Helen, the last-named deceased.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Mixsell are of French, Irish, and German descent, great-great-grandchildren of Valentine Garis, of Williams township, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, great-grandchildren of Samuel and Susan (Eichman) Garis, an expert wood carver, cabinetmaker, and furniture dealer, who later in life moved to Philadelphia, and grandchildren of William E. Garis. To this family also belonged William Garis, a member of the famous
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old Easton Union Guards, who went with this organization by "Durham Boat" to Philadelphia to participate in the demonstration in honor of General Lafayette on his visit to the United States in 1824. The children of Austin D. and Anna G. (Garis) Mixsell are lineal descendants of families who have played important part in the history of the Northampton region, among them Weygandt, Serfass, Eichman, Micke, Weaver, Grunmyer, Nowland, and Bech- tel. Their maternal great-grandmother, Susan (Eichman) Garis, was a great- granddaughter of Cornelius Weygandt, who came to America from the Pala- tinate, Germany, in 1736, and whose descendants are widely distributed throughout Eastern Pennsylvania, especially prominent in Northampton and Lehigh counties and the Philadelphia district. Ethan Allen Weaver, one of Northampton's leading historical writers, descends from Cornelius Weygandt, as does Professor Cornelius Weygandt, of Philadelphia, with many others of position and distinction in business and the professions. Cornelius Weygandt, the founder, married Maria Agenta Bechtel, daughter of the Rev. John Bech- tel, a graduate of Heidelberg University, who came to America in 1726 as one of the "Fathers of the Reformed Church in America," and who was the author of the early Reformed Catechism published by Benjamin Franklin. A son of Cornelius and Maria Agenta (Bechtel) Weygandt was born in Germantown in 1744, Captain Jacob Weygandt. He was educated in Germantown, Penn- sylvania, then came with his family to a "plantation" near Bethlehem, the present fashionable Fountain Hill section. He early espoused the Revolu- tionary cause, and was a member of the Northampton County Associators, one of the first patriot military organizations. He suffered capture at Fort Washington in November, 1776, later regaining his liberty, and was one of the organizers of a company of militia, of which he was commissioned cap- tain. Subsequent to the Revolution he settled in Easton and became the founder of the Easton German Patriot and Countryman, published from 1805 to 1813. He served as one of the first burgesses of the borough of Easton, filled a seat in the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1808 to 1811, and in 1809 was a presidential elector. He was a vestryman of old St. John's Lutheran Church. He married, in 1767, Catherine, daughter of John Nowland, another Northampton pioneer, and their eldest son, Cornelius Nowland Weygandt, born in 1771, was associated with his father and brother, Jacob, Jr., the latter founder of the Easton Argus, the earliest of Easton's English newspapers, first issued February 13, 1827. Cornelius Nowland Weygandt also served as secretary of the meeting of prominent citizens called to consider plans for the founding of Lafayette College. He married Susan Grunmyer, and they were the parents of two sons and three daughters. Helen, the youngest, married William Eichman, and they were the parents of Susan Eichman, who became the wife of Samuel Garis.
When the 17,000 men employed at the Bethlehem Steel Works in Beth- lehem stood with reverent mien for ten minutes and the great plant was quiet for the same period, it was a wonderful compliment and token of esteem to a fallen comrade, Austin Davis Mixsell. At the funeral services were all the company officials, headed by Charles M. Schwab. The services were held at the home and were conducted by Dean F. W. Beckman, rector of the Church of the Nativity, Pro-Cathedral of South Bethlehem. The honorary pall- bearers were: Charles M. Schwab, Eugene G. Gracc, president of the Bethle- hem Steel Company ; Archibald Johnston, vice-president ; H. S. Snyder, vice- president ; C. A. Buck, vice-president ; B. H. Jones, treasurer ; F. A. Schick, anditor ; W. F. Roberts, superintendent; R. F. Randolph, superintendent ; J. E. Mathews, manager of the ordnance department ; W. N. Tobias, purchas- ing agent; G. H. Blakely, manager of the structural steel sales; James H. Ward, secretary to the chairman; and John D. Hagenbach, assistant to the president.
At a meeting of the board of directors of the Bethlehem Steel Company, held January 17, 1917, the following resolutions were passed :
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WHEREAS, Austin D. Mixsell, our associate director and officer and close personal friend, has departed this life and entered into rest,
RESOLVED, That we, the board of directors of the Bethlehem Steel Company, hereby express our appreciation of the integrity and honor which he brought to the performance of his duties and the fidelity. the loyalty, the unfailing courtesy and the cheerfulness with which he carried out the various functions devolving upon him; also our sense of irrep- arable personal loss in the removal of a friend whom we have for years known and trusted, association with whom has been a sincere pleasure and will ever remain a treasured memory.
RESOLVED, That we hereby express our deep and heartfelt sympathy with his bereaved family in their great loss and sorrow.
RESOLVED, That as a mark of appreciation and respect all operations in the plants of this company and in the plants of the Dietrich-Hawey Machine Company, of which he was president, suspend during the funeral ceremonies.
RESOLVED, That a copy of this resolution be spread on the minutes of the board of directors and that a copy be sent to the family.
HAROLD BOGERT FARQUHAR-When that modern institution, the Rotary Club, which so admirably combines the best in business and social life, was presented to the Bethlehems, it was not long in enlisting Harold B. Farquhar as a supporter, and he has since been one of the most ardent advo- cates and its secretary. That is but one of the avenues through which his energy flows, he being a journalist, well known and highly regarded, the youngest newspaper editor in the Lehigh Valley. This in itself may not be a distinction worthy of note, but when coupled with the fact that the paper he edits is the Globe, a paper with the largest circulation in the city of Beth- lehem, the statement becomes a most interesting one.
Harold B. Farquhar, son of the late Thomas McKeen and Eliza (Bogert) Farquhar, was born in the city of Easton, Pennsylvania, July 16, 1879, his father for a decade superintendent of the public schools of the bor- ough of Bethlehem. When young he was brought to Bethlehem, and there educated in the public schools and South Bethlehem Business College. He began his connection with newspaper publication in 1897, and for two years was employed in the mechanical department of the Bethlehem Times, gradu- ating thence to the editorial department, continued associate editor of the Times until March 12, 1917, when he resigned to become vice-president of the Bethlehem Globe Publishing Company and editor of the Globe, Bethlehem's leading newspaper. As editor of the Globe he has championed every forward movement proposed for the city, and his influence is always to be relied upon if the object be a worthy one. Very progressive and public-spirited and ener- getic, his aid is sought for, as he is a powerful advocate of any cause he champions. He served as team captain in the campaign for the consolidation of the Bethlehems. He was also an active worker in the war chest drive, and a worker in the various war loan campaigns. Mr. Farquhar is a mem- ber of Bethlehem Lodge, No. 191, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; vice-president and director of the Bethlehem Boating Association ; member of Bethlehem Club; secretary and director of the Bethlehem Rotary Club ; director of the Keystone Home Association of the Odd Fellows; past grand of Keystone Lodge, No. 78, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; past chief patriarch of Star Encampment. No. 139, Independent Order of Odd Fellows ; member of the South Side Business Men's Association, and Bethlehem Cham- ber of Commerce. Politically he is an Independent Republican, and in relig- ious affiliation is connected with the First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem, North Side.
Mr. Farquhar married, November 3, 1908, Mary Esther Greene, daughter of the late Albert F. Greene and Mary Eleanor (Rolf) Greene, of No. 904 Pine street, Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Farquhar are the parents of six chil- dren : Eleanor Elizabeth, died in infancy ; Jean, born May 29, 1911; Betty Louise, March 4, 1913: Margaret Greene, November 2, 1914; Mary Esther, May 12, 1916; and Harold B., Jr., born November 10, 1917.
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WILLIAM BRAY-Joseph Bray, born in Cornwall, England, in 1835, came to the United States in 1856 and settled in East Bangor, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, where he was one of the pioneers in the slate industry in that section of Pennsylvania. He was a good business inan and in addi- tion to being a slate pioneer he was one of the organizers of the Methodist Episcopal church at East Bangor and a useful, active church worker so long as he lived. He married Louise Preston, who was also of English parentage and birth. They were the parents of four children : William, of further men- tion; Anna Mary, married John Langmead; Joshua, of East Bangor; Mil- ford, of East Bangor.
William Bray, eldest son of Joseph and Louise (Preston) Bray, was born in Chapmansville, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1858. Seven years later his parents moved to East Bangor, where he attended the public school and obtained his education. He was quite a young man when he began working in the slate quarries and, until 1886, he continued an employee, although holding a good position. In 1886 he began operating in association with his father, and two years later was elected treasurer and superintendent of the East Bangor Con- solidated Slate Company, a position which he has now held for thirty years. In 1906 he was one of the organizers of the Jackson Bangor Slate Company, of Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, the largest slate corporation in the United States. In that corporation he is a director and vice-president. Mr. Bray, in 1910, organized the Albion Bangor Slate Company, of Windgap, Pennsylvania, a corporation of which he is president and director. He formed an association with C. M. Miller in 1912 and purchased the Alpha Slate Company of Bangor, and in 1914 he organized the Banner Slate Company of Danielsville, in com- pany with gentlemen from Scranton. Of that corporation he is also president and director. He is a director of the Bangor & Portland Traction Company and of the Northampton Traction Company, both companies being aided by him in their promotion. He is also a director of the Delaware Valley rail- road, running from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to Bushkill, Pennsylvania. His large slate interests have been carried on in connection with a large and prosperous mercantile business, consisting of general lines of merchandise, a coal department, etc., incorporated under the name of Bray Bros. & Rasely. Other Bangor interests in which this keen, far-sighted man of affairs is en- gaged, arc: The East Bangor Manufacturing Company, of which he is a director, and which, during the recent war, has been supplying the United States Emergency Fleet with pulley blocks ; the S. Flory Manufacturing Com- pany, of which he is vice-president and director ; the Merchants Bank of Bangor, of which he is president and director.
In politics Mr. Bray is a Republican and he has served his town as school director as well as in many other offices. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church of East Bangor and has been superintendent of the Sunday school for thirty years, succeeding his father, who was one of its founders, and superintendent for thirty years. The two men, father and son, have held this office during the entire life of the school, fifty-five years. Mr. Bray takes more than an ordinary interest in his Sunday school work and has seen most satisfactory results follow his labor.
Mr. Bray married Mary Ellen Ackerman, daughter of Isaac and Catherine (Myers) Ackerman. They are the parents of four children: 1. William P., born in 1891, a graduate of Hackettstown Centenary Institute, Hackettstown, New Jersey ; Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut ; and the law, department of the University of Pennsylvania; now practicing his profession in Bangor. 2. R. Foster, born in 1884; selling agent for the Paige automo- bile, in Philadelphia. 3. Anna Mary, married Chester Booth, of Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania, manufacturer of piano stools and benches. 4. Joseph Truman, born in 1887, died December 20, 1918, being then connected with the Quar- termaster's Department of the Students of Wesleyan University.
N. H. BIOG .- 14
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This record of a busy, useful life reveals Mr. Bray as a man of ability and initiative, not afraid to venture and lead in great enterprises, where his judg- ment approved. He has been very successful in his undertakings, but his success has been honorably won, and he rose from the ranks through sheer force of merit. He has been outspoken in his support of all good causes and his influence is always for that which is good in community life. Mr. Bray was a member of the Exemption Board for district No. I, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, during the World War.
ROSE BARE SHERIDAN, M.D .- In Dr. Sheridan's veins flow the blood of three peoples, Irish, from her father, Belgian, from her maternal grandfather, French, from her maternal grandmother. Luckily, they were all allied during the great European War and there was no element to combat her patriotic zeal and fervor. Dr. Sheridan is a graduate of the Woman's Med- ical College of Pennsylvania, and for ten years has been in general practice in the city of Bethlehem, where she is well established and successful. Her professional instinct, highly developed, is a heritage from her honored father, James H. Sheridan, who is now retired from business, but is one of the oldest druggists of Bethlehem, a graduate of Pennsylvania College of Pharmacy, class of 1876.
James H. Sheridan was born in Bala, Pennsylvania, December 19, 1854, and is now living retired in the city of his birth. He was educated in Pro- fessor Schwartz's Academy, Lehigh University, and Pennsylvania College of Pharmacy, obtaining his degree and license as a pharmacist at graduation, class of 1876. While attending college in Philadelphia, Mr. Sheridan acted as clerk in the drug store owned by Prof. Edward Parish, and also was there as prescription clerk for a time after graduation. In 1877 he opened a drug store in South Bethlehem, which he successfully conducted until his retire- ment, September 19, 1916, a period of thirty-nine years. In the early days of the Bethlehem Iron Company, the Sheridan drug store bore a close resem- blance to a hospital, as the company then did not have the facilities for quick first aid to the injured which it now has, and an injured man was as quickly as possible taken to Sheridan's, where the skilled proprietor cared for his wounds or burns. When finally Mr. Sheridan retired from, business, he was succeeded by his son and daughters, all trained pharmacists, who are main- taining the high reputation always enjoyed by the Sheridan store. Although retired from the drug business, Mr. Sheridan retains his directorship in the E. P. Wilbur Trust Company, and his deep interest in public affairs. He married, June 6, 1877, Rosina Barè, whose Belgian father and French mother were carly settlers in South Bethlehem. Mrs. Sheridan died March 23, 1906, leaving five children : Anna, for several years stenographer and clerical assist- ant to the faculty of Lehigh University; Clement, his father's successor in business ; Rose Baré, whose career is herein traced ; Daniel, a resident of Cam- den, New Jersey; Bare, now serving in the United States Navy.
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