JAMES HARVEY HARRISON, an attorney-at-law ofPittsburg, was born March 6, 1857, in Harrison township,
Allegheny
County, son of John
Harrison. He is a grandson of Thomas Harrison, who emigrated to this State from
Newcastle-on-the-Tyne, England, during the earlier part of the present
century, and is said to have been the first man who mined anthracite coal in
Pennsylvania.
The father, who was a native of England, born in 1812, lived there until about
ten years of age, when he accompanied his parents to America. The
first two years after their arrival was spent by the family in Pottsville, Pa. Then they went to the eastern part of
Ohio, and lived there for a year, after which
they came to Pittsburg. John Harrison remained beneath the
parental roof-tree until at taining his majority, having been engaged in his
younger days in driving a six-horse team from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. He afterward turned his attention
to agricultural pursuits, first settling on what was then known as Grant's Hill,
and later locating on what is now the Fourteenth Ward of this city. On one of
the Schenley farms in Bellefield he started a dairy, which is still carried on
by one of his nephews. In 1855 he removed to that section of the county that was
then called Deer township but is now known as Harrison township, and there
engaged in farming until his death, which occurred October 12, 1879. He was
quite active in local affairs, and for fifteen or more years served as treasurer
of the School Board. He married Eliza Jane Sampson, of a locality that is now
called White Ash, this county. They had twelve children, of whom there are
living: David H., Margaret, John Edmund, Annie E., Alice M., James Harvey, and
Frank J. Margaret is the wife of Joseph B. Beale, of Leechburg, Pa.; and Alice
M. is the wife of H. H. Wray, of Leechburg. The parents also adopted an infant
nine days old, Effie Belle Johnson, who was baptized under the name of
Harrison at the
Presbyterian church, of which they were active members.
James H. Harrison acquired his preliminary
education in the common schools of his native town. In 1873 he entered the
commercial department of the
Pittsburg
High School
, from which he was graduated in June, 1874.
During the following two years he taught school in
Harrison township, in the meantime continuing his studies.
Then he spent a year at the
Washington and
Jefferson
College , going from the latter institution to
Lafayette
College
, from which he
received his diploma in 1881. In November of that year he registered as a law
student in the office of Bruce & Negley, and on January 5, 1884, was
admitted to the bar. He continued in the office of Messrs. Bruce & Negley
until the following April, when he formed a partnership with the late Samuel C.
Sawyer, and under the name of Sawyer & Harrison was successfully engaged in
business until the death of the senior member of the firm in February, 1890.
With the exception of a very brief time Mr. Harrison has since conducted his
business alone. He has an extensive practice, which is largely confined to the
insurance business, being a solicitor for a number of prominent
companies.
Mr. Harrison
was married June 18, 1884, to Miss Lulu B., daughter of George M. Alexander, of
this city. Of their four children Annie Wray, the first-born, died after living
three and one-half years. The others are: George A., Harvey Taylor, and Donald
I. Politically, Mr. Harrison is a strong advocate of Republican principles. He
was made a Mason in 1888 at the Hailman Lodge, No. 321, of which he is Past
Master by service; and he is a member of Pittsburg Chapter, No. 268.
Religiously, both he and his wife are members of the Tabernacle Presbyterian
Church, of which he was trustee and treasurer.
GEORGE L.
HOLIDAY, President of the
Common Council of Pittsburg and a representative of the American Book Company of
this city, is a Canadian by birth, having been born May 19, 1845, in Perth,
Ontario County. He comes of thrifty Scotch ancestors. His paternal grandfather,
John Holiday, was sent by the English government to Canada as a teacher for the
pioneer schools in the district at that time being opened up by the mother
country, and there he reared his children. Francis Holiday, the father of George
L., was born in Great Britain, probably in Glasgow, Scotland. Going to Canada
with his parents when a young lad, he received his education from his father in
Perth. There subsequently he also learned the trade of harness-maker, which he
afterward worked at for some years. In 1857 he removed with his family to Logan
County, Ohio, and, buying a tract of land, was thereafter engaged in general
farming until his death in May, 1896. He married Mrs. Margaret McEwan Hamilton,
a daughter of John McEwan, of Carleton, Ont., and they became the parents of
nine children.
George L. Holiday had acquired the rudiments of his
education in his native town, when, at the age of twelve years, he accompanied
his parents to their new home in Ohio. He had to assist his father in clearing
the land, which was then wild, and in the other labors incident to pioneer life,
his further schooling being confined to a few months in the winter season. After
he was eighteen years old he attended the academy at North-wood, two miles
distant, for several winters, and he completed his education at the Normal
School in Lebanon, Ohio, being graduated from the classical department in 1866.
Mr. Holiday then accepted a situation with Harper Brothers, being stationed in
Ohio until 1869, when he came to Pittsburg as a representative of their house,
continuing with them until 1880. Then severing his connection with that firm, he
was employed by Ivison, Blakeman & Co. until the organization of the
American Book Company, since which time he has been the company's active
representative in this city. First elected to the Republican ticket to the
City Council in 1873, he has since retained his seat in that body, being
its President for the past ten years, and with one exception its present oldest
member.
In the capacity of a member of the Building Committee he
took an active part in the erection of the Carnegie Library, of which he has
been a Trustee since its incorporation. He is also the superintendent and a
director of the Duquesne Inclined Plane Company, of which he was one of the
original promoters.
On September 7, 1870, Mr. Holiday married Miss Mary
T. Pringle, daughter of Dr. George W. Pringle, of New Concord, Ohio. They have
become the parents of seven children; namely, George A., Harry C, Grace W., Mary
E., Edna M., Samuel P., and Francis N. Mr. Holiday was made a Mason at Dallas
Lodge, No. 508, of Pittsburg. Both he and Mrs. Holiday are members of the Second
Presbyterian Church of this city.
JOSEPH HORNER, A.M., D.D., LL.D., who has been for nearly thirty years the agent of the
Methodist Book Concern in
Pittsburg
, is a man of profound scholarship and
pleasing personality. He was born in Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, one of the
prettiest spots in
England
, son of Charles and Elizabeth
(Morrill) Homer. The father, who was born in the
township of
Beadle,
Yorkshire,
was a first-class mason, and followed the business of contractor and builder in
his native land for some time. In 1832, with his wife and family, he came to
America, and, settling in
Pittsburg
, was
soon in control of a prosperous building and contracting business. An eloquent
and zealous member of the Methodist Episcopal church, he acted as local preacher
for some time in his native land, and in this city was a prominent church
member, serving the society as class leader and in other
capacities.
Joseph Horner was a child when his parents settled in
Pennsylvania.
He received his early education in a private school taught by Samuel Kerr, a
noted educator of that day, and he afterward graduated from Duff's Commercial College. Obtaining employment then as a
book-keeper for the firm of I. & A. Patterson, leading contractors and
builders of the locality, he worked for them six years. He then entered the
Western University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in the class of
1848. Among his classmates were Judge John H. Bailey and Judge Chris Magee;
Colonel A. S. Morgan, at one time the commandant of the United States Arsenal in
Pittsburg; and James D. Lange, who afterward won prominence among the railroad
magnates of New York. In 1850 Mr. Horner entered himself as a law student in the
office of John A. Wills, Esq., of Pittsburg. While not taking kindly to the law,
he showed a natural bent for the ministry. Subsequently, with the purpose of
following this calling, he entered the Pittsburg Methodist Episcopal Conference
in 1850, and devoted his time to studying theology and to writing. At this time,
stationed at Manchester, now a part of Allegheny City, he acted as junior preacher of the
Conference, and he contributed much valuable matter to the local papers and the
Methodist Quarterly Review. He was ordained Deacon in 1852 and Elder in
1854. There were six churches in this circuit, and his labors were shared by
another preacher. In 1853 he was placed in charge of the Fayette Spring Mission.
He continued in active pastoral work until 1869. In October, 1868, he was
appointed Pittsburg agent of the Methodist Book Concern,
and entered immediately on his duties. The office at that time was on
Wood Street, near the corner of Fourth Avenue. In
April, 1869, it was moved to the corner of Smithfield Street and Virgin Alley; and the
next move was in 1894, when the present commodious headquarters were opened to
the public. The building is a handsome eight-story brick edifice. The first
floor and basement are devoted to the Book Concern's business; and on the
seventh floor, besides a chapel, are the editorial rooms and the office of the
Pittsburg
Christian Advocate, the local denominational paper, of which Dr. Charles
W. Smith is the editor. Mr. Horner has written and published many articles of
interest, always following an unusual vein. His first production, published in
the Methodist Quarterly Review, was a dramatization of Solomon's Song,
entitled "Solomon's Song Retranslated, Arranged, and Annotated." Other articles
which attracted attention were: "Christianity and the War Power"; "The Baptism
of Naaman, the Leper," a treatise on immersion; "Where is the Ramah of Samuel?"
an article onthe birthplace of Jesus, and one on the chronology of the infancy,
taking up and refuting the views of Renan, the brilliant French infidel. Study
has always been Mr. Homer's luxury. He has recently given much attention to
research in chronology as connected with the developments of modern scholarship
in relation to the Assyrian monuments. For twenty-six years he has been the
treasurer of the funds of the Pittsburg Conference, and he was a member of the
General Conference in 1872 and 1876. In the latter year he was secretary of the
Committee on the State of the Church. He is a trustee of the Allegheny College, Beaver Seminary, and Pittsburg Female College. In his younger days he was
connected with a number of literary clubs and societies. He cast his first vote
in the ranks of the Whigs, and has been for many years identified with the
Republican party. When he was a boy he took an active part in juvenile
temperance work, becoming interested at the time of the Washingtonian movement
in 1840.
Mr. Horner was first married in June, 1853, to Caroline,
daughter of John McCracken, M.D., of Pittsburg. The four children born of the
marriage were: Charles S., a resident of this city; Martha E., the wife of
George T. Bushfield, a Pittsburg grocer; John
McC, who died in 1888; and James Richey Horner, M.D., of Allegheny, who is now
in London making
a special study of brain and nerve disorders. The mother died in 1863. Mr.
Horner contracted a second marriage on May 16, 1866, with Margaret Lusk, a
daughter of Thomas Lusk, of Allegheny. Of the three children born of this union
two died in infancy. The other, Joseph T., graduated from Western University in 1896, with the degree of E.
E. He is a member of the London Society of Biblical Archaeology.
WILLIAM THOMAS HOWE, the secretary and treasurer of the Safe Deposit and Trust
Company ofPittsburg, has risen to his present high place
in business and social circles from the position of office messenger. Born in
North Bloomfield, Trumbull County, Ohio, May 29, 18*54, son of William H. and Melvina
(Flower) Howe, he comes of a famous old New England family. Belonging to the seventh generation of Howes-in this
country, he descends from John Howe, who, according to a family tradition, was
born in 1602 in the parish of Hodinell, Warwickshire, England. In 1638 John Howe was
residing in Sudbury, Mass.; and he was subsequently the first settler in the
town of Marlboro, Mass. He died in 1689. His wife's
name was Mary. Samuel, son of John and Mary Howe, born in Sudbury, Mass., in 1642, built the "Wayside Inn" in
that quaint old town so charmingly described by Longfellow. The house has never
passed out of the possession of the Howe family, though it is many years since
it was used as a hostelry. Samuel Howe died in 1713. He was twice married, on
the second occasion to widow Sarah Leavitt Clapp.
Nehemiah Howe, a son of Samuel and the
great-great-grandfather of William Thomas Howe, was born in Sudbury in 1693. Captured
by the Indians in an attack on the fort at Great Meadows in 1745, during King
George's War, he was carried to Quebec, and incarcerated in a French prison,
where he died of prison fever in 1747. He left a diary, which was afterward
published, containing much valuable information concerning other New England people carried into captivity at the same
time. Nehemiah Howe married a daughter of Benjamin Willard, of Hopkinton, Mass. Their son, Abner Howe, the
greatgrandfather of William Thomas, was born in Grafton, Mass., in 1731. He settled in Northfield, Mass., when a young man, and worked at the
blacksmith's trade there for some time, moving eventually to Westmoreland, N.
H., where he was one of the original grantees. Abner Howe was a soldier in the
company of Captain Phineas Stevens, of Massachusetts, in the French and Indian War.
He died in July, 1781. His wife, Mehitable Holton Howe, was a descendant of
William Holton, who came from England in the ship "Francis" in
1634. Thomas Howe, son of Abner and the grandfather of William Thomas, was born
in Westmoreland, N.H., in 1779. When he was twenty years of age
he engaged in a mercantile business in Williamstown, Vt. In 1817 he moved to North Bloomfield,
Trumbull County, Ohio. Made a Mason in 1804 in Vermont, he was afterward
Past Master in the fraternity. His death occurred in February, 1863. He married
Clarissa Howard, of Woodstock, Conn., whose children by him were: Thomas M.,
George W., Nancy, and William H. Both parents were members of the Congregational
church.
William H. Howe, a native of Williams-town, Vt., born in January, 1816, received a
public-school education. While yet quite young he went alone to Pittsburg, and obtained
employment in the dry-goods store of Baird, Levitt & Co. Subsequently he
opened a dry-goods store of his own in Bloomfield, Ohio. Afterward, becoming interested in
mining, he entered the employ of the Pittsburg & Boston Mining Company, and
was for some time located at the Cliff Mines in Keweenaw
County, Michigan. Then for a number of years he was in
the employ of the Corry Manufacturing and Lumber Company of Corry, Pa. In 1876 he retired from active work,
returned to Bloomfield, and there died in February, 1886.
In 1848 he married Melvina, daughter of Horace Flower, of Bloomfield. Of their nine
children Mary D., William Thomas, Minnie M., and Harry W. attained maturity.
Minnie M. is now the wife of Eleazar Harmon, of Baltimore; and Harry W. resides in Pittsburg. The parents
were members of the Congregational church.
William Thomas Howe had a varied school
experience, pursuing his studies in the different towns where his father lived.
At the age of sixteen he went to work in the hardware store of C. J. Swift &
Co. in Corry, Pa.; and three years later he was hired as
messenger by the Oil Creek & Allegheny River Railroad Company, afterward the
Pittsburgh Titusville & Buffalo Railroad Company. In eight years he rose
from the position of messenger to the responsible office of auditor and general
passenger agent. He obtained in 1881 the position of book-keeper for the Safe
Deposit and Trust Company of Pittsburg, and in the following year was made
assistant secretary and treasurer. In May, 1888, he was installed in his present
office, a very responsible position, requiring a man of integrity, ability, and
conservative judgment. Mr. Howe is also first vice-president of the Keystone State Building and Loan Association, which he
was active in organizing.
He was married May 11, 1886, to Ida E.,
daughter of William M. Faber, of
Pittsburg
, and has two children — Gladys and
William T. In politics he follows the traditions of his family, affiliating with
the Republican party. He is a charter member of Nelson P. Reed Council, Junior
Order United American Mechanics. Both he and Mrs. Howe are connected with the
Shady Side Presbyterian Church.
