History of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, Part 85

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868- ed; John, J. J., 1829-
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Brown, Runk
Number of Pages: 1424

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DAVID ROCKEFELLER, deceased, was born on the 6th of September, 1802, son of William and Drusilla (Vankirk) Rockefeller and grandson of Godfrey Rockefeller. The latter was born in New Jersey in 1747; in 1789 he settled at the present site of Snydertown, Northumberland county, and there resided until his death. He married Margaret Lewis, and they were the parents of eleven children. William, the fifth in order of birth, was a farmer by occu- pation and died in Rush township, where David, his son and the subject of this sketch, was born and reared. After reaching manhood he first engaged in merchandising at Sunbury. He then learned surveying under his uncle, Jacob Rockefeller, and was actively engaged in the duties of that profession from the year 1826 until within a week of his death, which occurred at Sun- bury on the 22d of August, 1876. Throughout northern and central Penn-

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HISTORY OF NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY.

sylvania he enjoyed a reputation for exceptional accuracy, and was frequently called upon to make surveys in cases of disputed land titles. His memory was remarkable. Years after making a survey he could, without reference to his notes, give the courses and distances of lines that he had run, with per- fect accuracy and without apparent effort. He was county surveyor a large part of his professional career, either by appointment of the surveyor general or election to that office. He also served as deputy sheriff more than a score of years; on the 25th of June, 1849, he was commissioned as register and recorder, and filled that office until the ensuing election. He married Cath- erine, daughter of Philip and Susanna (Carter) Mettler, natives of New Jersey and pioneers of Rush township; she died on the 7th of September, 1889, at the age of seventy-nine. They were the parents of five sons, two of whom, William M. and A. Jordan, grew to maturity. A. Jordan Rocke- feller was a lawyer by profession, and died at Sunbury in 1862 at the age of twenty-six.

WILLIAM M. ROCKEFELLER, president judge of the Eighth Pennsylvania judicial district, was born at Sunbury, August 18, 1830, son of David and Catherine (Mettler) Rockefeller. He was educated at the Sunbury Academy, studied law under John B. Packer and the late Judge Jordan, and was ad- mitted to the bar of Northumberland county on the 6th of August, 1850. After one year of practice at Minersville, Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, he located at Sunbury, and was actively engaged in professional work until his elevation to the bench in 1871. Having been re-elected in 1881, he is now approaching the end of his second term. In 1855 he was elected chief bur- gess of Sunbury. In 1853, associated with Judge Jordan and M. L. Shindel, he revised and edited the second edition of the American Pleader's Assistant, a young lawyer's guide to pleading and forms that has found a place in many libraries. The Judge was a Democrat before the civil war, at the outbreak of which he became a Republican and has since been attached to that party. On the 11th of August, 1857, he married Emily, daughter of Thomas and Maria (Housel) Jones, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of three children: Mary; Charles W., attorney at law, and Flora, Mrs. Ward Rice, of Pueblo, Colorado. The family are all members of the Presbyterian church of Sunbury, of which the Judge has been a trustee over thirty years and chairman of the board of trustees since 1876. In 1887, in company with Mrs. Rockefeller and Mr. and Mrs. John B. Packer, the Judge visited the principal cities and localities of interest in the western States and Territories, and in the following year, accompanied by his son Charles W., he made an extended tour through the British Isles, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Italy.

IRA T. CLEMENT, president of the Sunbury Steam Ferry and Tow Boat Company and an extensive manufacturer of lumber, is a native of New Jersey and was born on the 11th of January, 1813. His father, Joseph

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Clement, a Revolutionary soldier, reared two sons and one daughter. After his death his widow married a Mr. Smith, who removed to Ohio and died there; she then returned to Sunbury, and here spent the remainder of her life. Ira T. Clement learned the carpenter trade at Sunbury, and pursued that occupation a short time; he then embarked in merchandising and was in business thirty years, and has now been engaged in the lumber industry nearly forty years. In the manufacture of lumber, furniture, and coffins he employs about one hundred twenty-five men, and gives to all his varions in- terests his personal supervision. Some years since he was stricken with rheumatism, which finally destroyed his power of locomotion; notwithstand- ing his condition he abates not in his energy, nor misses a day from a per- sonal survey of his important industries. His line of steamboats plying reg- ularly between Sunbury, Northumberland, and Shamokin Dam affords con- venient and pleasant transportation between those points. In politics Mr. Clement was once a Whig, then a Republican, and is now a Democrat. He married Sarah Martz, of Sunbury, who died in 1872; twelve children were born to them, four of whom are now living: Henry; Louisa, Mrs. H. E. Moore; Frances, widow of David C. Dissinger; and Laura, Mrs. D. James. Mr. Clement and family are members of the Reformed church.

JOHN HAAS, ex-president of the Sunbury Nail, Bar, and Guide Iron Man- ufacturing Company, was born at Elysburg, Northumberland county, Penn- sylvania, June 22, 1822. His parents, Daniel and Eve (Reed) Haas, were also natives of this county, and in 1854 removed to Newtown, Fountain county, Indiana, where they died. To them were born seven sons and four daughters, of whom eight are living: David, Jacob, Daniel, and William, who reside in the State of Indiana; John and Jonas, who live in this county; Julia A., who married Nicholas Y. Fisher and lives in Indiana, and Maria A., widow of Charles Leisenring, who resides at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. The parents became early identified with the Lutheran church, but after removing to Indiana joined the Methodist organization because of there being no Lutheran church in the town where they located.

John Haas received his education in a log cabin school house and among his early teachers were Albe C. Barrett, Jehu John, and William H. Muench. He worked on a farm until the age of eighteen years, when his father apprenticed him to learn the trade of fuller and carder with David Martz, at his mill located on a small stream near the present site of Paxinos. He soon became dissatisfied, believing that such a trade would be an unprofit- able one, and consequently quit. His father again sought a trade for him, this time putting him at the blacksmith shop of Daniel Roads, where he re- mained one winter, and then withdrew with the same belief that this, too, would be a poor vocation. His father then told him that he must look out for himself, and soon after the young son began clerking for his cousin, Jonas Haas, a merchant at Lineville, Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, receiv-

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ing the small sum of five dollars per month for hisservices. Atthe end of one year he came home, and within a short time took employment on the repair of a railroad at Pottsville, remaining thus engaged for one year. After a visit home he resumed his work under the same employer at Pottsville, but soon thereafter came to Sunbury in response to a letter from Ira T. Clement and became a clerk in that gentleman's general store, where he remained from 1845 to 1857. During the last mentioned year he was employed as a clerk by Fagely, Seasholtz & Company, coal merchants of Sunbury, and in the fall of that year he became a member of the firm, its name changing to the style of John Haas & Company. This firm conducted an extensive coal operation until 1872, when they sold their personal property to the Mineral Mining Company, but continued to deal in coal until the death of Mr. Fagely. During this partnership Mr. Haas and Mr. Fagely purchased four thousand acres of woodland in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, had a large amount of lumber manufactured from the same, and found sale for it at small profit. He belongs to Sunbury Lodge, No. 22, F. & A. M., Northum- berland Chapter, No. 174, and the Crusade Commandery of Bloomsburg; was a member of the I. O. O. F. of Sunbury; was a director of the Sunbury, Shamokin and Lewisburg railroad; is a director of the First National Bank of Sunbury; is president of the Sunbury Water Company; president of the board of directors of the Missionary Institute of Selinsgrove; was treasurer of the Pennsylvania State Sunday School Association for one year; was for a time a director of the Loysville Orphans' School; became a member of the Lutheran church over fifty years ago, and has been its Sabbath school super- intendent for twenty-two years, having at the present time a school of seven hundred pupils under his management, and the great good he has done in this worthy cause will only be known in that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. He was a Democrat until the formation of the Republican party, when he entered its ranks, casting his first vote for John C. Fremont for President of the United States.

He was first married in 1845 to Mary A. Geen, who died in 1856, the mother of four children, three of whom are living: Mrs. M. A. Martin; Mrs. J. C. Rohrbach, and John P. His second and present wife was Mercy Ann Martin.

WILLIAM DEWART, from whom the family of that name in this county is descended, was a native of Ireland; he immigrated to Chester county, Penn- sylvania, and thence, in 1775, to Sunbury, where he was an early merchant. There he died, July 25, 1814. Lewis Dewart, his son, was born at Sunbury, November 14, 1780; in early life he assisted in his father's store, and although actively and successfully engaged in business for many years, his public career is particularly noticeable. In 1816-20, inclusive, he was elected to the House of Representatives, in 1823, to the State Senate, and in 1834-37, inclusive, to the House of Representatives, of which he served as

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Speaker in the session of 1837. He was also elected to the XXIId Congress from the district of which his native county formed part. In politics he was a Democrat. He married Elizabeth Liggett, of Chester county, Pennsyl- vania; William L. Dewart, their only son, was born at Sunbury, June 21, 1820, educated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and at the College of New Jersey at Princeton, read law with Charles G. Donnel, and was admitted to the bar of Northumberland county in 1843. He was an active supporter of the Democratic party, and was several times a member of the national conventions of that organization; he was also a member of the XXXVth Congress, and otherwise prominent in public affairs. He married Rosetta, daughter of Espy Van Horn, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 1848, and they were the parents of three sons and two daughters, three of whom grew to maturity and are now living: Lewis, attorney at law, Sunbury; William L., of the Northumberland County Democrat and Sunbury Daily, and Bessie, wife of E. L. Brice, of Sunbury. Major Dewart died at Sunbury, April 19, 1888; his widow resides in that borough at an advanced age.

WILLIAM MCCARTY, deceased, was born at Port Roseway, near Shelburne, Nova Scotia, September 15, 1788, son of James McCarty, a native of Ireland, who had been wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of the Cowpens and was detained in Nova Scotia until 1798, when he removed to New York. The subject of this sketch was almost entirely self-educated. He began his active career as cabin boy on a merchantman, and made several voyages to the West Indies and Spain. He then entered the office of the leading Dem- ocratic paper of New York as an apprentice to the printing trade, at which he was subsequently employed as a compositor. His first venture as a publisher was a daily newspaper at New York, upon which he performed nearly the entire work himself. In that city he was also a member of the firm of Mc- Carty & White, which published a monthly magazine, The Ladies' Miscellany. About the year 1813 he removed to Philadelphia; there he became associ- ated with Francis Davis, and the firm of McCarty & Davis transacted an extensive and prosperous publishing business for some years. In 1830 Mr. McCarty became identified with the Wading River Canal and Manufacturing Company, which erected large paper mills at McCartyville (now Harrisville), on the Wading river in Burlington county, New Jersey. It was the intention of this company to manufacture paper from the salt marsh grass of that locality; the venture was entirely successful from a mechanical and scientific point of view, but, owing to the failure of the United States Bank, modifica- tions in the tariff, and other causes, it terminated in financial disaster in 1844. This obliged Mr. McCarty to retire from the firm of McCarty & Davis, and also compelled the suspension of the Philadelphia Gazette, a daily paper of which he had been editor and publisher. He subsequently operated the Wading Creek mills individually, but the entire establishment was destroyed by fire and thus his circumstances were more embarrassed than before. In

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August, 1844, he removed to Sunbury, where he conducted a book store and was identified with the Sunbury Canal and Water Power Company and other enterprises. He also acquired large property interests in this section of the State, but never fully recovered his former affluence. He died at Sun- bury on the 8th of April, 1861.

SIMON P. WOLVERTON, attorney at law, was born in Rush township, Northum- berland county, Pennsylvania, January 28, 1837. His parents, Joseph and Charity (Kase) Wolverton, descendants from English and German ancestry, respectively, were both born in this county. The senior Mr. Wolverton buried his wife in 1862; he lived to be eighty-three years old, dying in 1885. They reared two sons and three daughters. Simon P. Wolverton was edu- cated at Danville Academy and Lewisburg University, graduating from the last named institution in 1860, after doubling his studies and condensing the Junior and Senior years into one. He was admitted to the bar in April, 1862, and entered at once into practice. Upon Confederate General Stuart's raid into Pennsylvania, Mr. Wolverton raised a company of emergency men of which he was captain. When Lee's army invaded Pennsylvania he again raised a company of Pennsylvania militia and as captain served until hon- orably discharged. In the fall of 1878 he was chosen by the people of the Democratic party to fill out the unexpired term of A. H. Dill in the State Senate, Mr. Dill having resigned to become a candidate for Governor. He was twice re-elected, making in all a service of ten years in the upper branch of the Pennsylvania legislature. His district being Republican by at least one thousand, his three successful elections by large and increasing majori- ties admit of but one conclusion. In 1890 he was elected to Congress from the Seventeenth Congressional district, composed of Northumberland, Colum- bia, Montour, and Sullivan counties, by a very large majority. Mr. Wolver- ton is truly a self-made man. His only inheritance being an unusually brilliant intellect, a magnificent physique, an iron constitution, and untiring industry, the world was before him and he readily appreciated the demands that Queen Fortune would make before she would vouchsafe her smiles upon him. He entered the lists and all the good people of this county and thou- sands outside of it know the result, and with one accord proclaim "Long life and continued prosperity to the man who by his individual merit has risen from obscurity to exalted rank in the community of his nativity." Mr. Wolverton was married in Sunbury, March 23, 1865, to Elizabeth D. Hen- dricks, and has three children: Mary G .; Elizabeth K., and Simon P. The family are all members of the Presbyterian church, and Mr. Wolverton is identified with the Masonic and Odd Fellow fraternities.

TRUMAN H. PURDY, president of the Lewisburg Furniture and Planing Mill Company, treasurer of the Lewisburg Nail Works, treasurer of the Sun- bury Gas Company, and one of the directors of the Lewisburg Steam Forge Company, is an attorney at law of Sunbury, and was born in Wayne county,

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Pennsylvania, June 26, 1830. His parents, Harvey and Ruth (Clark) Purdy, were natives, respectively, of Wayne and Lackawanna counties, this State, and date their ancestry back to the colonial days. The senior Mr. Purdy died, November 9, 1847, aged forty-six years, and his widow died, December 31, 1852, at the age of forty-eight years. They reared three sons and one daughter, of whom our subject and a brother, Dr. N. C. Purdy of Allenwood, Pennsylvania, are living. T. H. Purdy was educated at Madison Academy and Lewisburg University. He established the Union Argus, a weekly paper at Lewisburg, edited it three years, sold out, and began the study of law with Judge Bucher. In 1861 he was induced to come to Sunbury and start the Northumberland County Democrat. He conducted this paper until 1867, publishing, at the same time, the German Democrat, a paper which died with his retirement. Under his management the Northumberland County Democrat increased its circulation from three hundred to three thousand five hundred. While conducting the paper he continued the study of law under Judge Alexander Jordan and in 1866 was admitted to the bar. Always a Democrat, he represented the county and that party two terms, 1864 and 1865, in the legislature. Since 1866 he has not been active in politics, but prior thereto he had been a hard and telling worker. In 1862 he made sixty-five speeches, and at the election of that year the Democrats polled one thousand majority as against sixty-four in the year 1861. He delivered the historical oration at the centennial celebration of Sunbury, July 4, 1872, which was published in pamphlet form and widely read. In 1863 he purchased considerable land, in what is now East Sunbury; he selected from it a plot of about two and a half acres, upon an elevation overlooking the town, upon which he erected his present residence. In 1876, associated with J. B. Ewing, he founded the town of Steelton, Pennsylvania, where he yet has large interests. Mr. Purdy takes an active interest in education and public improvements at all times, and the high school at Purdytown or East Sunbury is credited to his influ- ence. Being a man of learning and rare literary attainments he delights in books, and his private library is one of the finest in the State. As an author he has brought out through his publishers, J. B. Lippincott & Company, "Legends of the Susquehanna," a handsome volume of one hundred ninety- five pages, elegantly bound and rich in charming verse. The book is pro- fusely illustrated by the famous F. O. C. Darley, and this was the last work per- formed by that now lamented artist. Mr. Purdy also published a two hundred page poem entitled "Doubter" the edition of which has been exhausted, and has just completed a novel which will soon be brought out by his publishers. He was married in Lewisburg, December 19, 1861, to Mary E., daughter of the late Dr. Robert James, of Northampton county, and a sister of Robert E. James, of Easton, Pennsylvania, and has three children: Carrie M .; Tru- man J., and Hiram L.

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GEORGE HILL, attorney at law, was born in Lycoming county, Pennsyl- vania, August 3, 1821, and acquired an education at the common schools and a classical institute taught by Samuel S. Shedden, a Presbyterian divine. He began the study of law at Milton under James Pollock, afterward a mem- ber of the national Congress, but a change in circumstances led him to Union county, where he taught school and finished his legal studies under Absalom Swineford. He was admitted to the bar in August, 1848. Entering at once into practice he remained at Selinsgrove from 1849 to 1858, and in the spring of the last named year came to Sunbury. Here he has been for over thirty years a lawyer of recognized ability and a citizen of high repute. He has always been a Democrat; ever active in the promotion of others, for himself he has sought no political preferment, and has for some years taken no active part in politics. As a Mason Mr. Hill is also prominent. He is a member of the local lodge and chapter. Mastering the principles of those bodies he has passed into the higher dispensation of the commandery and consistory at Bloomsburg. In religious matters too he takes a deep concern and be- longs to the Reformed church. He was first married at Selinsgrove in De- cember, 1848, to Martha C. Buehler, who died in 1870, leaving the following children: Ferdinand K .; J. Nevin; Mary S., now the wife of J. Z. Gerhard, M. D., superintendent of the State lunatic hospital, Harrisburg, Pennsyl- vania; Samuel Ambrose, deceased; William Herbert, and Charles H. In June, 1871, he married Sue E. Kirlin, of Middletown, Pennsylvania. Mr. Hill's parents were Daniel and Susan (Truckenmiller) Hill, natives of Penn- sylvania, and of Scotch-Irish and German descent, respectively. The senior Mr. Hill, a farmer, died when his son George was only seven years old; his widow and three children moved to this county, where she died in 1865 aged sixty-five years. The Grandfather Hill was a Revolutionary soldier.

DANIEL HEIM, hardware merchant and vice-president of the Sunbury Nail, Bar, and Guide Iron Manufacturing Company, was born in Upper Ma- hanoy township, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, January 15, 1816, son of John and Sophia (Kohl) Heim. His grandfather came from Ger- many and was one of the pioneers of Upper Mahanoy. John Heim, a farmer and school teacher, died in 1824. He was the father of sixteen children, seven daughters and one son by his first wife, and six sons and two daugh- ters by his second wife. The latter lived to be eighty-eight years old. Daniel was her seventh child. His mother remarried when he was about twelve years old, and he soon afterwards entered upon the battle of life among strangers. For three years he found employment among the farmers, and then in Union county learned the carpenter trade and followed that and mill- wrighting eighteen years. In 1850 he engaged in the merchandise busi- ness in his native township and followed it sixteen years; thence he came to Sunbury and remained one year, and in 1867 moved to Danville and kept the Danville Hotel one year. In 1870, in partnership with his son John, he em-

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barked in the hardware business at his present location. John retired from the business in 1879, and Mr. Heim has since continued the business alone. He was one of the organizers of the Sunbury Nail, Bar, and Guide Iron Manufacturing Company, and has been its vice-president since its inception. In ante bellum days Mr. Heim was captain of militia and lieutenant of a volunteer com- pany, and when Johnston was Governor he was commissioned major of a uniformed volunteer battalion and held that rank five years. Major Heim was married in his native township, October 23, 1836, to Mary Hornberger, daughter of George Hornberger, and has had borne to him ten children: John H., a jeweler; Lydia, Mrs. Peter Ganser; Henrietta, Mrs. Samuel H. Sny- der; Sarah Ann, deceased wife of Charles Schlagel; Louisiana, widow of Albert Haas; James B., who had been in the army, was mustered out, and died in 1865 on his way home; George W .; William Henry; Mary Ellen, who died in 1863, and Percival O. Mr. Heim is a member of the Masonic fraternity and of the Lutheran church. He served one year as chief burgess of Sunbury, elected by the Republican party.

GEORGE W. ZEIGLER, attorney at law, was born at Gettysburg, Pennsyl- vania, May 24, 1819, son of George and Gertrude Elizabeth (Chritzman) Zeigler. George Zeigler was a hatter by occupation, and served his county many years as prothonotary. He was born in Gettysburg and died in Dauphin county, where he had lived some years, at the age of sixty-three years. His wife was a native of Germany, lived to be seventy-five years old, and died in Butler county, Pennsylvania, where she lived with one of her sons. His father was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and himself a soldier in the war of 1812. The subject of this sketch was educated at Gettysburg and learned the printing business on the old Gettysburg Compiler. When yet a young man he joined his brother at Butler in the printing busi- ness, and then began the study of law. At the age of twenty-two years he was admitted to the bar, and practiced law two years afterwards in Butler. From there he went to Jefferson county, where he built up an extensive practice, remained fifteen years, and left on account of his health. After two years' practice at Selinsgrove he came to Sunbury in the fall of 1864. Here his ability as a lawyer was readily recognized, and he has long occupied a high position in the profession. He has been thrice a member of the legis- lature-in the sessions of 1854-55 and 1861. He has always been a Demo- crat and his advocacy of the principles of that party have until within the past four or five years been untiring and zealous. Mr. Zeigler is truly the archi- tect of his own fortune. The inheritor of no riches, the recipient of no bounty other than the God-given qualities of a correct mind and a sound body, his successes in life are scored to his individual merit. The late Jacob Zeigler, for fifty years a conspicuous factor in Pennsylvania politics and whose life forms a part of this great State's history, was the elder brother of our subject. Mr. Zeigler was married in Butler, December 27, 1838, to Mary A. McQuis-

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History of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, Part 85

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868- ed; John, J. J., 1829- Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, Brown, Runk Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868- ed; John, J. J., 1829-
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Brown, Runk
Number of Pages: 1424