Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II, Part 25

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 972

USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II > Part 25

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sult that the properties of the Toby Company are yielding the maximum product possible with the labor expended, the methods now in use being based on a farsighted policy which considers ultimate profits rather than imme- diate returns, and the future value of the workings rather than present gains which in- volve unnecessary waste. Mr. August has gone carefully into all the details of resource and production connected with the mines of the Toby Company, and has installed a system which will conserve the best interests of the company and place them on a permanent basis. In addition, he holds a half interest in the 1 .. M. Groves Mercantile Company, con- ducting the leading general store in the bor- ough of Brockwayville. His business ability and executive qualities have manifested them- selves promptly in every undertaking with which he has been associated. Increased activ- ity and purposeful energy have marked his entrance into the concerns with which he has allied himself, the spirit of efficiency which is the keynote of modern business being one of his characteristics especially prominent be- cause of the emphasis which the needs of the day have made necessary in this particular.

During his college days Mr. August became affiliated with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fra- ternity, which has numbered such well known men as the late President Mckinley, Philan- der C. Knox and Leslie O. Lamar in its mem- bership. He is a Mason, belonging to blue lodge No. 379. F. & A. M., of Ridgway. Pa .. and to Elk Royal Arch Chapter. No. 230. of the same place. In political principle he is a Republican.

Mr. August was married April 8, 1912. to Jessie Mclean Palmer, the ceremony being performed in New York City by Rev. Dr. Houghton, at the Little Church Around The Corner. They have two children: Wendell McMinn Il, born Aug. 10. 1913, and Robert Edward, born May 10. 1915. All their mar- ried life has been spent at Brockwayville.

Mrs. August was born at Johnsonburg, Pa .. June 23. 1893, where she was reared, attend- ing public school there up to the age of six- teen years. Hler studies were then continued at St. Margaret's School. Buffalo, for one vear. after which, in order to avail herself of the desired opportunities for vocal training, she entered the Pennsylvania College for Women at Pittsburgh, devoting her time to voice culture. For five months afterwards she was a pupil in the Institute of Musical Art, in New York City, conducted by Frank Dam- rosch, studying there until her marriage. Mrs.

August has a voice of excellent tone and un- usual range, and her ability as a vocalist, combined with a gracious personality, has made her a welcome acquisition for the social circles of Brockwayville.

Dr. William Russell Palmer, father of Mrs. Wendell M. August, is a leading physician at Johnsonburg. Pa. The Palmer family is of Revolutionary stock, and its members all over the country have been prominent in all the higher walks of life. The Doctor graduated from the University of Buffalo (N. Y.) in 1887, studied medicine also in Vienna, Aus- tria, and has been practicing at Johnsonburg since 1889. He has been chief surgeon of the Elk County Hospital ever since the opening of that institution. Dr. Palmer married Mary Katherine lowell, who was born Feb. 27, 1862, at Newton, N. J., daughter of Robert and Elizabeth ( Stoll ) Howell, the former an army paymaster during the Civil war and sub- sequently warden of the New Jersey State penitentiary at Trenton. The Howells are of Welsh extraction. When a young lady Mrs. Howell accompanied her parents to Hays, Ellis Co .. Kans .. taught school there during the pioneer period, and returning East took a course at the New York Hospital, from which she was graduated, later becoming matron of the Buffalo General Hospital. Dr. and Mrs. Palmer have three children: William Russell, Jr .. Jessie MeVean and Francis Earley.

DRS. JOSEPH P. AND FRANCIS LOUIS BENSON. physicians and surgeons, of Punx- sutawney, control a large and important pro- fessional business, the scope of which attests alike their technical ability and their personal popularity. The same spirit of enthusiasm which characterized their careful and vigor- ous efforts in preparing with all thoroughness for their chosen work has been manifest in its steady pursuit, with the result that they have met with uninterrupted success and gained secure prestige as representative physicians and surgeons of Jefferson county. They are twin brothers, born in January. 1879, at Brady's Bend. Armstrong Co .. Pa .. sons of John C. and Sarah ( Kane ) Benson.

John C. Benson was born and reared in Ire- land, where his honored parents passed their entire lives, and he was a youth at the time when he severed the ties that bound him to the Emerald Isle and set forth to seek his for- tune in America. Hle first settled in the State of New Jersey, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1860, the year of his removal to Armstrong county, l'a. Lo-

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cating at Brady's Bend, he became identified with the operation of iron furnaces and passed the greater part of his active life there in that line. Finally he removed with his family to Anita, Jefferson county, where he had his residence until his death. Ilis remains are interred in the West End cemetery at Punx- sutawney, and his widow now maintains her home in that borough. Their children are here named in the order of birth: John, Mary, Thomas, Sarah, William, Anna and James, and Joseph P'. and Francis Louis.

In the public schools of Pennsylvania Jo- seph P. and Francis Louis Benson acquired their early educational discipline, which was effectively supplemented by a five years' course of study in the Adrian private school at Punxsutawney. Thus well fortified along academic lines, Joseph P. Benson then fol- lowed out his ambitious purpose by entering the Medico-Chirurgical College in the city of Philadelphia, from which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1899, with the well earned degree of doctor of medi- cine. He has since taken well directed post- graduate work, and by this means, and by availing himself of the best in standard and periodical literature pertaining to his profes- sion, he keeps in full touch with the advances made in both medical and surgical science. After his graduation he was engaged in prac- tice at Anita, this county, for a period of four years, and then found a broader field of pro- fessional labor by removing to Punxsutawney, where he and his brother have since com- manded a substantial and representative practice. Ile is serving as a member of the medical staff of Adrian Hospital, is an appre- ciative and valued member of the Jefferson County Medical Society, the Pennsylvania State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is a popular factor in the professional, business and social circles of his home town and county. In addition to holding membership in the Punxsutawney Club and the Country Club he is actively affili- ated with Punxsutawney Lodge, B. P. O. Elks.

Dr. Joseph l'. Benson was married to Mary G. Bennis, a daughter of J. G. Bennis, who is now a resident of San Francisco, Cal. Dr. and Mrs. Benson have three children. Joseph. Mary Louise and Paul.

As already noted, Dr. Francis Louis Ben- son had the same preliminary education as his twin brother. After successfully managing stores for the Berwind & White Coal Mining Companies at Windber, Pa., and the Vulcan

Trading Company, at Mount Union, P'a., he entered Jefferson Medical College, Philadel- phia, where he spent two years in the study of micdicine. Then he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, from which institution he was graduated in 1910. Dr. Benson first located at Brockwayville, as assistant to Dr. W. C. Quinn, where he re- mained for two years, at the end of that period coming to Punxsutawney with his brother, Dr. J. P. Benson, with whom he has since practiced.

On Aug. 24, 1912, Dr. Francis L. Benson was united in marriage to Julia Alice Ken- nedy, of Jersey City, N. J., and they have one son, Julian Kennedy Benson, who is now three years old. Dr. Benson, like his brother, is associated with the American Medical Associa- tion, the Pennsylvania Medical Society, and the Jefferson County Medical Society.

JOHN F. DINGER, now a business man at DuBois, was until recently a resident of Sun- merville, Jefferson county, and a leader in so many progressive and ambitious projects there that he was justly regarded as one of the most valuable citizens of the borough and the ad- jacent territory, in the development of which his business operations have played an impor- tant part. Mr. Dinger is possessed of the fore- sight and judgment necessary to successful venture, and when convinced of the feasibility of an undertaking is courageous in entering upon it and persistent in following his ideas until their practicability has been demonstrated. Those familiar with his methods and capa- bility have the utmost confidence in him, and the fact that he fayors any movement is suf- ficient to win support for it among the most substantial element in the community. The story of his achievements in his personal enter- prises makes it easy to understand this favor- able estimate of his townsmen, who also hon- ored him with the most important public trusts.

Mr. Dinger was born in Clarion county, Pa., Nov. 9. 1861, son of Michael and Sarah (Graff ) Dinger, and he is of Pennsylvania- German extraction in the paternal line, Scotch-Irish on the maternal side. His grand- father was a Pennsylvania German. His ma- ternal ancestors had to leave Scotland because of their active connection with the cause of Charles, "The Young Pretender." Michael Dinger was born in Schuylkill county, Pa., and was six years old when the family moved to Clarion county, where he spent the rest of his life, dying on the old homestead there at the advanced age of eighty-five years. His family

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consisted of ten children, four sons and six daughters.

John F. Dinger received an excellent edu- cation, and for several years during his young manhood was engaged in educational work, from the time he was sixteen until he reached the age of twenty-one being occupied as a teacher in his native county during the winter season, and meanwhile continuing his own studies at school. When twenty-two years of age, after his marriage, he removed to Arm- strong county, this State, where he lived on a farm for nine years, in addition to general agriculture dealing in stock and farm ma- chinery. Meantime, in 1888, with a few associates, he went to Florida and pur- chased a large timber tract covered with a fine growth of long-leaved yellow pine, which afterwards proved especially valuable on account of its phosphate deposit. While handling and selling farm machinery Mr. Dinger also developed his natural mechan- ical skill to such an extent that it later secured for him the handling of seven counties for D. MI. Osborne & Co., of Auburn, N. Y., man- ufacturers of binders, mowers and reapers, as "blockman," with headquarters at Pittsburgh. From there he moved to Summerville, where he was established until his removal to DuBois in 1916, and he made substantial contributions to its business life. In the early part of his residence there he was interested in the water plant, owning a half interest in the People's Water Company for two years, and acting as general manager of that concern for two years. He then bought the Carrier gristmill, which had been built in 1861, purchasing the property from John Beach, remodeled it according to modern standards, and conducted it very prof- itably until it was destroyed by fire Dec. 11, 1015. Under his superior management it did a large business, forty to fifty thousand dollars annually, and attained a foremost place among local industries. On May 15, 1915, he incor- porated the John F. Dinger Milling and Baking Company, capitalized at $35.000. of which he is president, treasurer and manager, John A. Nolf being secretary of the company. On Oct. 5. 1916, the John F. Dinger Milling and Bak- ing Company bought the Hunter & Johnson gristmill, on Brady street, DuBois, Pa., han- dling grain and grain products. While Mr. Dinger's principal interests have been in this line, and it was his most important concern in relation to the prosperity of the borough of Summerville. he has by no means limited his activities to its demands. From time to time he has had other interests, and it is greatly to

his credit that they have invariably been worthy of the support of the community. For a short time he was a part owner of the Cash Buyers' Union Store at Summerville. He was one of the original organizers of the Citizens' Na- tional Bank of New Bethlehem, Pa., and a di- rector of that institution for years. Now he is vice president of the Citizens' National Bank of Reynoldsville, Jefferson county. He is a large real estate owner in the state of Ken- tucky as well as Pennsylvania.

Though he never sought public preferment Mr. Dinger was honored with election to the most responsible office within the gift of his fellow citizens, being the burgess of Summer- ville for three years, from 1913 to 1916. Need- less to say, the executive qualities which have made his own affairs prosper so notably were highly appreciated in his direction of town matters. Politically he is a Democrat, and an ardent Wilson man at present. From the age of fourteen years Mr. Dinger has been a mem- ber of the Lutheran Church at Shannondale, Clarion county.

In September. 1883. Mr. Dinger married Clara A. Slicker, of St. Petersburg, Clarion Co., Pa., and they are the parents of four children, three sons and one daughter : Layard, born in 1884. is a graduate of the Western University of Pennsylvania, at Allegheny, and is now engaged as a civil engineer in the service of the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Rail- road Company ; he married Amy Lowery, and they have two children, Edith and John F., Jr. Earnest M., born in 1887, died at the age of nineteen years, while a student at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg; he was especially gifted as an orator, and was inclined toward the min- istry. Edith, born in 1900, died of scarlet fever when two years old. Grover J., born in 1892, now assistant cashier of the Citizens' National Bank of Reynoldsville, married Mary Carrier, of Summerville.

JOHN BARNETT STEWART, of Brook- ville, has substantial claims to honorable men- tion among those lawyers of talent and notable legal acquirements who have done credit to the Jefferson county bar. In twenty years of prac- tice he has attracted favorable notice from all the associates, professional or personal, who have had the opportunity to watch his career as a lawyer. Nor has he been less fortunate in the business relations which have varied his busy life and broadened his activities. The several connections of this sort which he has formed have turned out so satisfactorily that he might have won creditable place by them

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alone, and are an indication of versatile abil- ity which deserves recognition.

Mr. Stewart's birthplace was Eldred town- ship, Jefferson county, where the family has been established for the better part of a cen- tury. Paul Stewart, his grandfather, was the first of this line to choose Jefferson county for a homestead. It was in 1832 that he lo- cated in Eldred township, upon a tract of 120 acres which he had purchased. Situated in the midst of pine forests, the land was wild and the soil unbroken by the plow. But the ax soon had the difficult work of clearing started. and the soil was put under cultivation as fast as prepared, the harvests increasing from year to year as progress was made in the transformation of the wilderness to productive fields. The rude provisions for shelter gave way in time to substantial buildings, and a comfortable home and farm property were the results of patient industry and intelligent care. This farm of 120 acres has been, in the family without interruption ever since, and is now owned by John Barnett Stewart, who is very much interested in agriculture and the improvement of farming conditions. Through his efforts it has become one of the best and most highly improved farms in Eldred town- ship. Here Paul Stewart and his wife Jane ( McCurdy ) reared their family, which con- sisted of the following children: Jane, who became the wife of David Motherell: Robert, who married Nancy McNeil; Thomas Mc- Curdy, more fully noticed in the next para- graph ; Mary, wife of John White; and John, who married Dinah McCracken and (second) Mary Cochran. All are now deceased.

Thomas McCurdy Stewart was born in Westmoreland county, Pa., Aug. 16, 1826, and (lied Feb. 9. 1893. Owing to the unsettled con- dition of Eldred township during his boyhood his schooling was necessarily limited, and he experienced all the other privations which the progeny of those undaunted settlers who braved pioneering had to undergo. But there was plenty of work to occupy his time, for he began to help at an early age, and did his share of the chopping and hewing necessary to let the sunlight in through the dense forests. As the giant trees were felled they made room for the fertile fields which meant plenty for him and his family, and he prospered by hard work continued through all his years. He had the intellect and character to win respect from his neighbors, and was influential in his neighbor- hood, though he took little formal part in the administration of its affairs, having no ambi- tion for public honors. He was occasionally

persuaded to accept minor offices in his town- ship, from a sense of duty toward his fellow citizens, whom he served faithfully, but he preferred to exercise his powers in the choos- ing of other good men for such responsibili- ties. He married Sarah Jane Whitehill, a native of Clarion county, Pa., and three chil- dren were born to this union: John Barnett; Jenny Lind, who became the wife of James L. Carman; and Ethel Elbirda, who married W. L. Stevenson.

John Barnett Stewart was born Jan. 3, 1869. Having passed his boyhood on the home farm, he acquired some familiarity with agricultural work, but he did not choose it for a calling, and directed his preparations accordingly. The winter schools conducted in the vicinity afforded very fair opportunities for common school training, and he had also been allowed to attend the academies at Corsica and Belleview. When but sixteen years old the youth passed a teacher's examination and was engaged as instructor in a district in Heath township, this county. His salary was only twenty dollars a month, but board was not dear in those days, and he had twelve dollars a month left after "finding himself." Thus he started upon a course which many an aspirant to professional training has followed successfully, studying and teaching, according to opportunity or ne- cessity, during the several years that followed. After completing his first engagement as a teacher he entered the Wesleyan University, at Delaware, Ohio, where he pursued the higher studies, and he graduated from the Clarion ( Pa.) State Normal School in June, 1892. Subsequently he taught in various dis- tricts of Forest, Jefferson and Clarion counties, as well as one year at Ocheltree, Kans .- 1894. Returning from the West to Brookville, he felt in a position to follow his long cherished am- bition of completing a law course, and entered the office of the late Hon. George A. Jenks for that purpose. He was admitted to practice in the various courts in May, 1896, and has been an active member of the Jefferson county bar ever since. At the time of his admission to the bar Mr. Stewart was holding the position of deputy county treasurer, and he completed five years of service as such. In 1900 he took up insurance work with the New York Life Insurance Company, and has carried it ever since in connection with other responsibilities, operating very successfully within a radius of twenty-five miles of his home town. Mean- time his legal work has increased steadily, in both volume and importance, to such an extent that he is one of the important figures at the

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Jefferson county bar. Aside from these inter- ests, his chief association has been with the Bessemer Coal Mining Company, of which he has been vice president since the organization in 1903. The company's field of operations is at Hilliards, Butler Co., Pa., and the business headquarters are at Reynoldsville, Jefferson county.

Mr. Stewart's home, a brick residence at No. 280 Franklin avenue, Brookville, is very pleasantly situated and arranged. He mar- ried Maude Paddock, who had been a popular public school teacher in Brookville, and they have one daughter, Mary, now a high school student at Brookville. Miss Dorothy Hoyt, their niece, is a member of their household and also a student in the high school. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart hold membership in the First Presbyterian Church of Brookville. Frater- nally he is a thirty-second degree Mason, affil- iated with Hobah Lodge, No. 276, F. & A. M., and Jefferson Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, No. 225, of Brookville, Coudersport Consis- tory, and Jaffa Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Altoona, Pa. Since December, 1911, Mr. Stewart has been a member of the board of education of Brookville and takes an active interest in the school affairs of the borough.

DAVID L. TAYLOR, of Brookville, has shown the strength of purpose necessary to keep his course true to his convictions and ideals, through character and service to his fellows giving the best assurance of his appre- ciation of the relative values of the many factors which go to make up modern life. He has proved himself a worthy representa- tive of a family whose members have been long and honorably linked with the annals of Jefferson county, and his individual accom- plishments have been of a nature to reflect new distinction on the name. It can not be doubted that in his career he has shown forth the definite value of the admirable home influence under which he was reared, and it is his to pay large and loyal filial tribute to the memory of his father and mother, both of whom led lives of exalted ideals. Their 1in- assuming strength, unfailing kindliness and earnest sincerity permit no savor of inconse- quence to touch any phase of their long and useful lives. It is a privilege to accord in this history a tribute to their memories as well as a brief review of the career of their son.

David L. Taylor is known and honored as one of the representative men of affairs in his native county, where he is president of the

Brookville Title & Trust Company. besides being extensively identified with coal and gas industrial enterprises in this section of the State and a representative figure in connection with lumbering operations.

David L. Taylor was born on the old home- stead farm of his father, near Corsica, Eldred township, Jefferson county, and the date of his nativity was Aug. 30, 1868. He is a son of Newton and Sarah ( Moore ) Taylor, the former of whom was born in Crawford county, Pa., on July 9, 1832, and the latter in Summerville, Jefferson county, in 1841. her parents having been sterling pioneers of this county.

Newton Taylor long wielded large and beneficent influence in connection with indus- trial and civic affairs in Jefferson county, and in all of the relations of life he stood exponent of abiding self-knowledge, self-respect and self-control-the attributes that lead to worthy success and indicate intrinsic nobility of char- acter. He was but fifteen years of age at the time of his father's death, and thereafter he remained on the little homestead farm in Crawford county until he had attained to the age of seventeen years, when he came to Jef- ferson county, animated by youthful ambition and self-reliance, and determined to win for himself definite independence and prosperity through industry and through normal avenues of activity. The surroundings of his youth were far removed from those of affluence. and the death of his father caused him early to assume heavier responsibilities than would otherwise have fallen upon him. Employed as a cattle drover, Mr. Taylor came to Jeffer- son county in charge of a herd which he drove through to what was then the Cowan farm. Within a short time thereafter he found em- ployment driving oxen in the lumber woods along the Clarion river, and thus was insti- tuted his association with a line of industry in which he was destined to achieve large success and more than local prestige. For his services in the capacity noted Mr. Taylor was to receive the princely stipend of fifty cents a day. but his employer met with finan- cial difficulties and thus the young employe was denied even this nominal compensation. His ambition was one of action and circum- spection, and by proving his mastery of expedients he was finally enabled to engage in lumbering operations in an independent way. At the mouth of Clear creek Mr. Taylor erected and placed in operation the first steam sawmill on the Clarion river, and with careful policies and marked energy he amplified his

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Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II, Part 25

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918 Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers Number of Pages: 972

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 972