Erie Railroad, from Sixth street to Bingham street. Also the largest puddle
mill in America at Girard, Ohio. The mills now give employment to twenty-
five hundred men, and have an annual capacity of 96,000 tons of wrought
iron water, gas, steam and oil-well pipe.

In 1870 Mr. Byers became the sole owner and operator of an extensive
furnace, puddle and rolling mills at Girard, Ohio. He was one of the or-
ganizers of the Philadelphia Company, and was one of its board of directors,
and its largest individual stockholder until the company was purchased by
Alexander Brown & Sons, of Baltimore. One of his associates in the
establishment of this company was George Westinghouse, with whom he
was later allied in other and greater enterprises. Mr. Byers had been a
director in the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the Westinghouse Electric
Manufacturing Company, and the Union Switch & Signal Company. He
was president of the Union Bridge Company, and in diflferent ways fostered
many other manufactures, the number of which it would be impossible to



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 119

enumerate. He did not ally himself with the National Tube Company at
its inception, but conducted the business of A. M. Byers & Company. As a
business man, it may without exaggeration be asserted that Mr. Byers was
in many respects a model. The goal of his ambition was success, but he
would succeed only on the basis of truth and honor. Duplicity and false
representations he would not palliate, either in his own service or among
his customers or correspondents, and no amount of gain could lure him
from the undeviating line of rectitude. The justice and kindliness which
ever marked his dealings with his employees were beyond all praise and
secured for him their loyal service and hearty cooperation.

Not only was Mr. Byers for many years prominently identified with
the manufacturing interests of Pittsburgh, and with the commercial element
in her business life, but he was also a leader in the realm of finance, holding
the office of president of the Iron City National Bank. He was a director
in the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Insurance Company, the American
Surety Company, and many other concerns. As a citizen with exalted ideas
of good government and civic virtue he stood in the front rank, ever ready
to lend his influence and support to any project which, in his judgment,
tended to further the best interests of Pittsburgh. Widely but unostenta-
tiously charitable, the full extent of his good deeds was known only to
the beneficiaries. He affiliated with the Republican party.

In his countenance Mr. Byers plainly depicted all the tremendous
energy and indomitable resolution so strikingly manifested throughout his
career. His finely-cut features and keen, searching eyes indicated at once
the thinker and the man of action, while the kindliness of his expression
and the geniality of his manner showed that he combined the qualities of a
leader in the arena of business with those of a philanthropist — that he pos-
sessed those beautiful elements of character which win and hold friends.

Mr. Byers married, December 22, 1864, at Allegheny, Pennsylvania,
Martha, daughter of Cockran and Sarah Fleming, of Pittsburgh, and the
following children were born to them: Maude, wife of J. Denniston Lyon;
Alexander McBurney, deceased ; Dallas Cannon, also deceased ; Eben M.,
president and director A. M. Byers Company, director Bank of Pittsburgh
National Association, director Bessemer Coke Company ; and J. Frederick,
vice-president and director A. M. Byers Company, director Union National
Bank, director Hay Walker Brick Company, vice-president and director
Girard Iron Company, member Board of Managers, Allegheny General
Hospital. J. Frederick Byers married, December 6, 1905, at Ardmore,
Pennsylvania, Caroline Mitchell, daughter of E. B. Morris, of Philadelphia,
and has children : Alexander McBurney III., and John Frederick, Jrmas and
Jane Crosier Hales. As a result of this union the following children were
born: Maud, who married Louis Houston, they have two children: Harold
and Theodore ; James ; John C, with the following children : Clare U.,
Margaret J., Anna Fay and Virginia M. ; and Sarah, who married Charles
Richard. The latter have three children : Charles, Dorothea and Ralph.

After the death of John H. Telford, the Tribune Printing Company




£'r^^^^j:.£:.Pf^//^.!i^s s^j-^.J^/Th"




Z.f^a J^^/i,^.k:a^/ ^^s-. ^r^







J/^>r^A^l




CU2,



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 123

was reorganized, with his widow, Margaret E. Telford, president ; James
Telford, secretary, and John C. Telford, treasurer and managing editor,
which corporation has been conducting the business successfully ever since.



In the third generation of the Hice family of whom there is
HICE record, and in the fourth generation of that of Agnew in Amer-
ica, was effected a union that brought together two lines of great
antiquity, the first of note in Germany, the second of the noble blood of
Scotland. That the glories and fame of the past shall not tower above
the distinctions and achievements of the present, and lest the ancestors
seem more illustrious than the descendants, it is well to here state that in a
recent day representatives of both houses have fully shown their worth and
merit before their fellows by attaining unusual eminence in the legal pro-
fession. This record of Hice begins with Henry, a pioneer settler of
Ligonier Valley, Indiana county, Pennsylvania, who married and there
died. Among his children was William, through whom the line of descent
is traced to Henry, of whom further.

Henry (2) Hice, son of William Hice, was born in Hopewell town-
ship, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, January 24, 1834, died October 2,
1905. Completing the studies of his boyhood and desiring to enter the
legal profession, in 1857 he entered the office of Colonel Richard P. Roberts,
qualifying, under the tuition of that attorney, for entrance to the Beaver
county bar, which admission was granted him in June, 1859. That his
preceptor held his legal ability to be of no ordinary order was evinced by the
offer he immediately extended, the formation of the firm, Roberts & Hice,
an association at once begun and continued until the death of the senior
member on the battlefield of Gettysburg. While a resident of Beaver Falls,
which he was from 1871 until 1877, in the latter year returning to Beaver,
he was appointed president judge of the thirty-sixth judicial district, re-
ceiving his commission to that position, April 30, 1874. He was elected
for the following term and served to its close, January i, 1885, when he
once more resumed his private practice, his influence strengthened and his
reputation enhanced by his eleven years judicial duty, during which time his
name had become familiar to all throughout the state, one that aroused
uneasiness in the breasts of those who had cause to fear the just processes
of the law. For many years he was the legal adviser of the Harmony So-
ciety and of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, and was closely connected
with many of the most important business enterprises of the county. His
practice at the bar, both before and after his public service, was large, re-
flecting the confidence placed in him as an able and honorable counselor.
After the admission of his son, Agnew, to the bar, the firm of Hice & Hice
was formed, the knowledge and experience of the father aiding in fitting
the son to succeed to the high position he would leave vacant. Mr. Hice
was never so deeply engrossed with business cares and professional require-
ment, but that he found ample time to assume a leading part in any project
that would bring benefit or honor upon his city or county. It was in pur-



124 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

suance of this principle that he readily assented to a request from the
executive committee of the Beaver County Centennial Celebration that he
deliver an address on that occasion on the "Bench and Bar" of the county
during its one hundred years of existence as such. His speech on that
occasion was one full of interest, giving a brief and concise review of the
formation of the different courts in the county, and passing mention of those
more prominently connected therewith, with graceful tributes to those whose
records warranted such honor. As a lawyer, it may be said of Mr. Hice
that he was learned, keen, forceful and fair, that he scorned the tricks and
subterfuges of his profession with a genuine loathing, and that in all of his
legal connections he was never defiled even with the slightest imputation
of dishonor. In social communion with his fellow-men he was genial, kindly
and pleasant, his many amiable qualities attracting to him a wide circle of
friends, whose regard and respect was unfailingly accorded him, and he was
the same genial and respected man in his family, a kind and devoted husband
and father.

He married (first) Ruth Ann Ralston, who died in 1872; (second) in
1877, Mrs. Sarah H. (Agnew) Minis, daughter, of Chief Justice Daniel
and Elizabeth (Moore) Agnew (see Agnew III). Children: i. Richard,
geologist of the State of Pennsylvania. 2. Agnew, an attorney, of Beaver,
Pennsylvania. 3. Mary, married John Mtoore, a railroad employee, and
lives in St. Louis, Missouri. 4. Laura.

The history of the Agnew family is an interesting one, one of its most
attractive points being the fidelity with which the members, about whom
closer interests naturally attends, those of American residence, have followed
the spirit of the family motto as it appears upon the Agnew coat-of-arms,
Consilio Non Impetu, of which a translation in modern terms is, "With
brain, not brawn." As the records of those generations unroll themselves,
it will be seen to what an extent this has been true. The Agnews (an-
ciently Agneaux) of Locknaw, Scotland, are of Norman descent, members
of a family which was moderately numerous in France from the ninth to
the sixteenth century, now entirely extinct in the country which was the
cradle of their race. Toward the close of the twelfth century they were
granted lands in Ireland, and about 1330, Agneau, son and heir of the Earl
of Larne, acquired the lands of Locknaw in Galloway, with the hereditary
title of constable and the office of sheriff of Wigtown, as well as of the
baillie of Leswalt. In the fourth generation of that title Earl Douglas ex-
]jelled the incumbent, this taking place about 1390, it being restored in the
fifth generation when Sir Andrew Agnew married, in 1426, the daughter of
Sir John Kennedy, of Dunure, by the Princess Mary. Reinstatement was
made by the Duchess of Turenne, Lady Superior of Galloway, who not only
replaced him in his father's position, but caused charters of ratification to
be passed to him, under the Great Seal, establishing also the sheriffdom
of Wigtown in his family forever. Such is the blood from which Daniel
Agnew, the American ancestor of the line of Agnew, descends, coming to
this country from Glasgow, Scotland.



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 125

(I) Daniel Agnew was appointed a member of the faculty of Princeton
College, and was for many years a professor there, occupying the chair of
mathematics. He purchased a farm near Stony Brook, known as the Agnew
Farm, and in the latter years of his life was steward of the college in which
he had formerly held a professorship. He married a Miss Armstrong, and
had children: i. James, of whom further. 2. George, moved to the western
part of the country, where he died. 3. Daniel. 4. Martin, a manufacturer
of New Jersey.

(H) Dr. James Agnew, eldest son of Daniel Agnew, was educated in
the college with which his father was connected for so long a term of years,
Princeton, and became an exponent of the medical profession. He lived for
a time in New Jersey, but later moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where
he was one of the earhest of physicians. He formed a partnership with
Dr. Simpson, and the following advertisement, which appeared in the city
directory for the year 18 19, shows the wide gulf that separates the profes-
sional methods and practices of a century ago from those of our present
day : "Drs. Agnew and Simpson have formed a copartnership in the prac-
tice of medicine, and cojointly tender their services to their friends and all
others who may apply for professional aid. Their shop is at the comer
of Third and Wood Streets, where one or both may at all times be con-
sulted." He married the daughter of Governor Howell, of New Jersey, her
brother being the father of Mrs. Jeflferson Davis, wife of the president of
the Confederate States of America, while that league of states stood.

(HI) Daniel (2) Agnew, son of Dr. James Agnew, was born at Tren-
ton, New Jersey, January 5, 1809, died in Beaver, Pennsylvania, March 9,
1902, aged ninety-three years. He was a student in the academy of Joseph
Stockton later entering the University of Western Pennsylvania whence he
was graduated in 1825. He began the study of law, upon which he had early
decided as his life profession, with Henry Baldwin and W. W. Fetterman,
gaining admission to the bar, April 21, 1829. Almost immediately he moved
to Beaver and was a resident of that place for the remainder of his life.
Work in a semi-rural community was not sufficient to hide 'his powers from
those who needed men of calm, collected and deliberative powers, and he
was temporarily called from his practice to serve as a member of the con-
vention that framed the constitution of 1838. He was a member of the
Pennsylvania electoral college in the presidential election of 1848, which
returned Zachary Taylor the first citizen of the United States, and on July
II, 1851, was commissioned president judge of the seventeenth judicial dis-
trict, composed of Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties, by William
F. Johnston, governor of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to fill a
vacancy caused by the death of the Hon. John Bredin, of Butler. Later in
the year he was elected to the same office, and was commissioned for a term
of ten years, from December i, 185 1. At its expiration he was re-elected
and was commissioned for another term of ten years, being in 1863 elected
a justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, with a fifteen-year com-
mission dating from December i, 1863, and on November 25, 1873, he was



126 WESTERN I'ENNSYLVANIA

commissioned chief justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, serving
until January I, 1879, vifhen he retired from his profession, accepting but
two more private cases during his remaining years. Rarely has there been
a lawyer whose experience covered so many years and who rose to such lofty
position, whose contemporaries have been so unanimous in their praises of
his worth, nor a judge whose opinions created less dissatisfaction at the time
of their rendering nor whose decisions have stood the test of such a number
of hotly contested cases and the onslaughts of lawyers of merit. He was the
first judge in the Uhited States to hand down a decision stating that "green-
backs" were a lawful tender in the payment of precedent debts, and pro-
mulgated many others of equal fame. An eminent lawyer once said of
him : "In his opinions, if compiled in compact form, the lawyer, and student
would have a formidable compilation of the law upon almost every con-
ceivable topic, every branch, division, and specialty of the science having
received scutinizing analysis and wise determination. Seeking the truth
with conscientious industry, no cause was too small to merit his thorough
investigation, none too large for the comprehensive grasp of his powers."
It was one of his lifelong characteristics that he held an implacable hatred
for the liquor traffic, and in his day as president judge of the county court
ill fared the license-seeker who appeared before him unless legally fortified
to the last extreme, for he compelled the fulfillment of the very letter of
the law. His length of service in the capacity of judge had impressed him
with the worthlessness of the lawyer contemptuously spoken of as "shyster,"
and when he detected a young lawyer deviating from a course of the strictest
integrity he was wont to deliver to the culprit a long-remembered lecture,
which, often arousing the ire of the guilty one, more often impressed him
with the shame of the course he was pursuing and the smirch he was placing
upon the profession. A patriarch in his profession, it was his wonderful
ability, solid and substantial knowledge, and a mind capable of storing, cata-
loguing and producing immense quantities of miscellaneous information on
all subjects that enabled him to defend his claims of supremacy among the
greatest legal lights of the generation. He was also a scholar of note, receiv-
ing in 1864 the degree of Doctor of Laws, Washington College being the
institution honoring him, Dickinson College duplicating the tribute in 1880.
After his retirement he wrote a history of the "Settlement and Land Titles
of Northwestern Pennsylvania," which was published in 1887.

Mr. Agnew married Elizabeth Moore, who died in 1888, aged seventy-
nine years, daughter of General Robert Moore, the ceremony being solem-
nized in 1831. Children: Frank H., and Robert M,, attorneys; Amanda,
married Rev. Walter Brown ; Sarah H.. of previous mention, married
Henry Hice (see Hice III).



The Shallenberger family flourished in Canton
SHALLENBERGER Uri, Switzerland, where its descent is traceable
to the fourteenth century. They took their name
from the mountain on which they lived, Shallenberger or Echo Mountain.



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 127

(I) Ulrich Shallenberger emigrated to America in 1770, and settled in
Lancaster county, Pennsylvania.

(II) John Shallenberger, son of Ulrich Shallenberger, was born in
Canton Uri, Switzerland, and was a very young infant when he was brought
to this country by his parents. He married and had children.

(III) Abraham Shallenberger. youngest child of John Shallenberger,
removed with his family to Fayette county, Pennsylvania, in 1790.

(IV) Abraham (2) Shallenberger, son of Abraham (1) Shallenberger,
was bom in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, August 22, 1797, died in Roch-
ester, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, in 1868. After his marriage he re-
moved to Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, where he
was engaged in business as a maker of harness, saddles, whips, etc. In
April, 1856, he removed to Rochester, Beaver county, and there became
associated in business with his son. Dr. Aaron T. Shallenberger, in the
manufacture of Dr. Shellenberger's Fever and Ague Antidote, and was
thus occupied until his death. In his earlier years he affiliated with the
Whig party and later joined the ranks of the Republicans. He and his
family were members of the Baptist Church.

Mr. Shallenberger married, in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in
February, 1822, Rachel Newmyer, who died in 1870. They had children:
I. Harriet, born October 29, 1822 ; she married Dr. James McConaughey,
of Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania ; her last days were spent in York, Ne-
braska. Children : Laura, Ida, John deceased ; Dr. Robert McConaughey,
of York, Nebraska. 2. Laura, born April i, 1824, died in infancy. 3. Dr.
Aaron T., of further mention. 4. George A., born April 27, 1827; after
being educated in the public schools of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania,
he entered upon a business career ; for a time he was in the dry goods busi-
ness in Munntown, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, then came to Rochester,
Beaver county, about 1853, and there became interested in the manufacture
of Dr. Shallenberger's Fever and Ague Antidote ; for some years he was
superintendent of the Morganza Reform School, and warden in the Western
Penitentiary; at the time of the Civil War he enlisted in Company I. One
Hundred and Fortieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, holding
the rank of second lieutenant, and was advanced to brigade quartermaster;
later he became quartermaster of the Second Corps under General Han-
cock; at the close of the war he was appointed warden of the Reform
School at Washington, District of Columbia, and was still in office there
at the time of his death in 1903 or 1904; Mr. Shallenberger married Arti-
lissa Hull and had children: Ella, Georgia James. 5. John Lloyd, born
April 12, 1829; was a merchant in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland county,
Pennsylvania, and followed the same line of business in Clarion county,
where he was living at the time of his death ; he married and had childreii

Cora, who married Rave, a druggist of Philadelphia; Maggie, mat

ried William Hineman, who later became a judge in Clarion county; Frank,
deceased ; Stella, who never married. 6. Smith, twin of John Lloyd, was
connected with the manufacturing interests of his brother. Dr. Aaron T., he



128 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

never married, and died in the sixties. 7. Elizabeth C, born August 13,
183 1 ; she married George Bonbright, who was for many years a member of
the firm of Bhuler, Bonbright & Company, of Philadelphia; he died in that
city in 1888, and his widow is now living with her sister, Mrs. E. M. Power;
children : James, Walter, Edwin Stanton. 8. James, born January 23,
1833, died in infancy. 9. Susan, born Mjarch 6, 1837; married Edward
M. Power, of Rochester, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, and they have chil-
dren : William, Rachel, Howard, Mary, Edward George, Elizabeth. 10.
General William S., born November 24, 1839; studious from his earliest
years, he engaged in teaching after the completion of his education, and
was also interested in the wholesale drug business at the time of the out-
break of the Civil War ; he offered his services to his country, was adjutant
in the One Hundred and Fortieth Regiment, and was wounded three times;
he was a member of the staff of Colonel Roberts, and was actively engaged
at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, battle of the Wilderness, and numerous
minor skirmishes ; at the close of the war he became cashier of the First
National Bank of Rochester, a position he held for some years ; he served
as chairman of the county committee, and was elected to congress from his
district for three consecutive terms ; he was appointed second assistant
postmaster general under McKinley, and served for ten consecutive years,
after which he resigned ; he is now assistant to Dr. Green, in the Baptist
Church, of Washington, District of Columbia, superintendent of the Sun-
day school, and leader and teacher of the Vaughn Bible Qass of the Calvary
Baptist Church, one of the most noted Bible classes in the United States;
General Shallenberger married Josephine, daughter of George Thomas J.
Powers, a pioneer settler of Beaver county, Pennsylvania ; they have had
children: Elizabeth, married Frederick M. Smith, of Wasihington, Dis-
trict of Columbia; Mary, married Harper McClerg, of Washington, District
of Columbia ; William, a photographer in Akron, Ohio ; Josephine, married
Rev. Paul Sperry and lives in a suburb in Boston. 11. Cyrus Vance, was
educated in the public schools and came to Rochester, Beaver county, Penn-
sylvania, at the age of thirteen years; he then became a student at the
Beaver Academy, and entered the sophomore class of the University of
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, now Bucknell College ; he became interested with
his brother, Dr. Aaron T., in the Fever and Ague Antidote, manufactured
by the latter, and after the death of Dr. Shallenberger became general man-
ager of the business on Ohio avenue, Rochester; in f)olitics he is a Re-
publican, and served as school director eighteen years; he and his wife are
members of the Baptist Church, in which he is a deacon, and of which he
has been treasurer for the past fifteen years; Mr. Shallenberger married
(first) in 1867, Emma Seeley, of Rochester, who died in 1869, leaving one
son, Charles S., who has now been for a number of years with the H. C.
Fry Glass Company; Mr. Shallenberger married (second) Mary Pittman,
of Rochester, Pennsylvania, in 1875, and has one daughter, Lillian C, who
married Dr. J. S. Darragh, of Woodlawn, Pennsylvania, and has one child,
Marian A., now a junior at the Woodlawn High School.




^^^.^. tyA-<z~-^/.cyM,'A'<^-^^^*' -^^.^^



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 129

(V) Dr. Aaron T. Shallenberger, son of Abraham (2) and Rachel
(Newmyer) Shallenberger, was born in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland
county, Pennsylvania, February 20, 1825, died in 1901. He received hi.->
early education in the public schools of his native county and at the Greens-
burg Academy, and then took up the study of medicine with Dr. W. C.
Reiter. Matriculating at the Jefiferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, he