Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Biographical Sketch of Joseph L. Szepessy

Szepessy, Joseph L.; real estate and steamship agency; born, Kassa, Hungary; high school education; married, Pittsburgh, Pa., Jan. 16, 1889, Irene Balczer; issue, three sons, George, Theodore and Edward; staunch Republican, organizing many Republican clubs; elected decennial assessor in 19th Ward; instrumental in naturalizing thousands of his countrymen; first Hungarian real estate agt. in the …

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Biographical Sketch of George N. Ifft

George N. Ifft, of the firm of Ifft & Wallin, proprietors and managers of the Pocatello Tribune, is a native of Butler County, Pennsylvania, born January 27, 1865. He began newspaper work, as a reporter, in Pittsburg, that state, and continued in that capacity and in various editorial relations in other cities, as Washington, D. …

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Biographical Sketch of Willis Stutson

Stutson, Willis; sales mgr. The Oldsmobile Co.; born, Lancaster, O., Jan. 28, 1884; son of Alverd and Emma Stutson; educated, Asheville schools, Asheville, N. C.; married, Pittsburgh, Pa., April 23, 1905, Ethel Crozier; issue, one daughter, Elizabeth Stutson; 1904-1905, special agt. New York Life Insurance Co., traveling out of Dayton, O.; 1905, 1906, 1907, has …

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Biographical Sketch of Alfred J. Anderson

Anderson, Alfred J.; division freight agent, Baltimore & Ohio R. R.; born, Butler, Pa., Jan. 17, 1870; son of Samuel and Drusilla C. Harper Anderson; educated, public schools Butler and Prospect Academy, Prospect, Pa.; married, Washington, D. C., Feb. 15, 1900, Florence E. Wynne; one daughter, Anna Elizabeth; May 1, 1890, entered the service of …

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Biographical Sketch of Norris J. Clarke

Clarke, Norris J.; born, Cleveland, Aug. 29, 1880; son of Jay M. and Lena D. Clarke; educated, Cleveland public schools and Central High School; married, Sewickley, Pa., June 24, 1907, Katherine Pearson; two daughters, Kathleen and Marguerite; entered the employ of The Bourne-Fuller Co. in 1897, as office boy and worked at all office positions, …

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Biographical Sketch of Harry Edgar Walkey

Walkey, Harry Edgar; contractor; born, Cleveland, Aug. 19, 1882; son of Wm. W. and Lida Stephens Walkey; educated, Fairmont school; married, Pittsburgh, Pa., Sept. 7, 1905, Louise Cargill; issue, two children; general contractor; member Maccabees. Recreations : Hunting and Motorcycling.

Biographical Sketch of E. Loomis Spriggs

Spriggs, E. Loomis; realty and building; born, Washington, Pa., Oct. 17, 1880; son of Edward and Josephine E. Greenlee Spriggs; educated, Ohio Northern University, Ada, O.; treas. The Commonwealth Realty & Building Co.; identified with the agency force of The Pittsburgh Life & Trust Co.; subsequently in the Federal service at Pittsburgh until 1906, when …

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Biographical Sketch of James K. Dillon

Dillon, James K.; assistant general passenger agt. Pennsylvania R. R.; born, Pittsburgh, Pa., Oct. 25, 1860; son of Levi and Eliza Ann Kelly Dillon; educated, common schools and High School, Pittsburgh, Pa.; married, Pittsburgh, Pa., Nov. 5, 1896, Edna Virginia Jack; one son, James Edward Dillon, born, Pittsburgh, Pa., Oct. 29, 1904; entered R. R. service …

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Biography of William Paxton Hazen

William Paxton Hazen, who died at Chetopa, Kansas, April 16, 1909, was for many years a successful Kansas banker. His widow, Mrs. Addie (Glass) Hazen, who survives him, is widely known in women’s circles in Kansas, and is especially active in charitable and philanthropic enterprises in her home city. Mr. Hazen died when at the …

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Leslie B. Todd of Pittsburgh PA

Leslie B. Todd9, (Hollis D.8, Ora B.7, Bela6, Caleb5, Gideon4, Gideon3, Michael2, Christopher1) born Sept. 10, 1877, married May 23, 1906, Mittie Smith, who was born Aug. 11, 1878. He has a position in the P. O. at Pittsburg, Pa. Children: 2771. Kenneth V., b. July 7, 1907. 2771a. Katherine.

Life and travels of Colonel James Smith – Indian Captivities

James Smith, pioneer, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, in 1737. When he was eighteen years of age he was captured by the Indians, was adopted into one of their tribes, and lived with them as one of themselves until his escape in 1759. He became a lieutenant under General Bouquet during the expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764, and was captain of a company of rangers in Lord Dunmore’s War. In 1775 he was promoted to major of militia. He served in the Pennsylvania convention in 1776, and in the assembly in 1776-77. In the latter year he was commissioned colonel in command on the frontiers, and performed distinguished services. Smith moved to Kentucky in 1788. He was a member of the Danville convention, and represented Bourbon county for many years in the legislature. He died in Washington county, Kentucky, in 1812. The following narrative of his experience as member of an Indian tribe is from his own book entitled “Remarkable Adventures in the Life and Travels of Colonel James Smith,” printed at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1799. It affords a striking contrast to the terrible experiences of the other captives whose stories are republished in this book; for he was well treated, and stayed so long with his red captors that he acquired expert knowledge of their arts and customs, and deep insight into their character.

An Account of the Sufferings of Mercy Harbison – Indian Captivities

On the 4th of November, 1791, a force of Americans under General Arthur St. Clair was attacked, near the present Ohio-Indiana boundary line, by about the same number of Indians led by Blue Jacket, Little Turtle, and the white renegade Simon Girty. Their defeat was the most disastrous that ever has been suffered by our arms when engaged against a savage foe on anything like even terms. Out of 86 officers and about 1400 regular and militia soldiers, St. Clair lost 70 officers killed or wounded, and 845 men killed, wounded, or missing. The survivors fled in panic, throwing away their weapons and accoutrements. Such was “St. Clair’s defeat.”

The utter incompetency of the officers commanding this expedition may be judged from the single fact that a great number of women were allowed to accompany the troops into a wilderness known to be infested with the worst kind of savages. There were about 250 of these women with the “army” on the day of the battle. Of these, 56 were killed on the spot, many being pinned to the earth by stakes driven through their bodies. Few of the others escaped captivity.

After this unprecedented victory, the Indians became more troublesome than ever along the frontier. No settler’s home was safe, and many were destroyed in the year of terror that followed. The awful fate of one of those households is told in the following touching narrative of Mercy Harbison, wife of one of the survivors of St. Clair’s defeat. How two of her little children were slaughtered before her eyes, how she was dragged through the wilderness with a babe at her breast, how cruelly maltreated, and how she finally escaped, barefooted and carrying her infant through days and nights of almost superhuman exertion, she has left record in a deposition before the magistrates at Pittsburgh and in the statement here reprinted.

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