Beaver County Genealogy Trails
PREFACE
Biographies
Transcribed by Kate Michaelson
HAVING brought to a successful termination our labors in Beaver County in
compiling and editing the sketches herein contained, we desire, in presenting
this Book of Biographies to our patrons, to make a few remarks necessarily brief,
in regard to the value and importance of local works of this nature.
We agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson that " Biography is the only true History," and
also are of the opinion that a collection of the biographies of the leading men of
a nation would give a more interesting, as well as authentic, history of their
country than any other that could be written. The value of such a production as
this cannot be too highly estimated. With each succeeding year the haze of
Obscurity removes more and more from our view the fast disappearing landmarks
of the past, Oblivion sprinkles her dust of forgetfulness on men and their deeds,
effectually concealing them from the public eye, and because of the many living
objects which claim our attention, few of those who have been removed from the busy
world linger long in our memory. Even the glorious achievements of the present age
may not insure it from being lost in the glare of greater things to come, and so
it is manifestly a duty to posterity for the men of the present time to preserve a
record of their lives and a story of their progress from low and humble beginnings
to great and noble deeds, in order that future generations may read the account of
their successful struggles, and profit by their example. A local history affords the
best means of preserving ancestral history, and it also becomes, immediately upon
its publication, a ready book of reference for those who have occasion to seek
biographical data of the leading and early settled families. Names, dates, and
events are not easily remembered by the average man, so it behooves the generations
now living, who wish to live in the memory of their descendants, to write their own
records, making them full and broad in scope, and minute in detail, and insure their
preservation by having them put in printed form. We firmly believe that in these
collated personal memoirs will be found as true and as faithful a record of
Beaver County as may be obtained anywhere, for the very sufficient reason that its
growth and development are identified with that of
the men who have made her what she is to-day - the representative leading men, whose
personal sketches it has been a pleasure to us to write and give a place in this volume.
From the time when the hand of civilized man had not yet violated the virgin soil with
desecrating plough, nor with the ever-ready frontiersman's ax felled the noble, almost
limitless forests, to the present period of activity in all branches of industry, we may
read in the histories of the country's leading men, and of their ancestors, the steady
growth and development which has been going on here for a century and a half, and bids
fair to continue for centuries to come. A hundred years from now, whatever records of the
present time are then extant, having withstood the ravages of time and the ceaseless war
of the elements, will be viewed with an absorbing interest, equalling, if not surpassing,
that which is taken to-day in the history of the early settlements of America.
It has been our purpose in the preparation of this work to pass over no phase or
portion of it slightingly, but to give attention to the smallest points, and thus invest
it with an air of accuracy, to be obtained in no other way. The result has amply justified
the care that has been taken, for it is our honest belief that no more reliable production,
under the circumstances, could have been compiled.
One feature of this work, to which we have given special prominence, and which
we are sure will prove of extraordinary interest, is the collection of portraits of the
representative and leading citizens, which appear throughout the volume. We have tried to
represent the different spheres of industrial and professional activity as well as we might.
To those who have been so uniformly obliging and have kindly interested themselves in
the success of this work, volunteering information and data, which have been very helpful
to us in preparing this Book of Biographies of Beaver County, we desire to express our
grateful and profound acknowledgment of their valued services.
CHICAGO, ILL., November, 1899. THE PUBLISHERS.
NOTE