his education was acquired in the local public schools and he later attended
the Confluence Academy. He had determined upon leading a professional
life and had chosen medicine as his calling, and accordingly, matriculated
in the medical department of the University of Pittsburgh, from which he
finally graduated with the class of 1897. Gaining thus the theoretical knowl-
edge, he next set about obtaining the practical experience requisite to the
practice of his profession, becoming an interne in the Children's Hospital,
Pittsburgh, and in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, in each
of which he remained a year. Upon the outbreak of the Spanish-American
War, Dr. Eicher joined the United States Volunteers as an assistant surgeon,
with the rank of captain, and saw service both in the southern camps and in
Porto Rico and the Philippines. Upon the close of the war he went with
the troops to the Philippines, where he remained from 1900 to 1903. In
the latter year, having seen five years service, he returned to the United
States, and settled in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, establishing himself there
in general practice. As time went on Dr. Eicher has gradually specialized
in the surgical department of his profession, until, at the present time
(1914), his practice is almost exclusively general surgery. Besides his pri-
vate practice, he occupies the post of surgeon on the staflF of the Ohio Valley
Hospital at McKees Rocks. Dr. Eicher is a conspicuous figure in the ranks
of his professional brothers in western Pennsylvania, and is associated with
them in many of the professional organizations. He is a member of the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Society, the McKees Rocks Medical So-
ciety, the Allegheny County Medical Society, the Pennsylvania State Medical
Society and the American Medical Association.



i68 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

Despite his onerous professional duties, Dr. Eicher finds time to be
interested in the public affairs of the community of which he is a member,
and to take an active part in the political and social life thereof. He is a
member of the Republican party, and is also associated with the Masonic
Order, the Knights of Pythias and the Knights of M'alta. Among his other
professional posts. Dr. Eicher numbers that of first lieutenant of the Medical
Reserve Corps of the United States Army. He and his wife are members
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he being one of the official board.

Dr. Eicher married, June 30, 1913, Nan Tannehill, a daughter of Rev.
N. B. Tannehill, a clergyman of the Methodist Church. They have one child,
Virginia, born April \2, 1914.



Dr. Joseph G. Steedle, one of the most prominent of the ris-
STEEDLE ing physicians of McKees Rocks, Allegheny county, Pennsyl-
vania, is a member of a German-American family of the
type that has furnished so valuable an element to the citizenship of this
country, the type which for many generations in the Fatherland, and even
now in the widely different environment of this land of their adoption,
have held, almost as a religion, the ideals of industry and thrift.

(I) Jacob Steedle, the paternal grandfather of Dr. Joseph G. Steedle,
was a native of Baden, passing his entire life in the town of Leinhein, in
that kingdom, where he was a rope maker, and also served as a soldier in
the army. He was married to Marie Anne Miller, also a native of Baden,
by whom he had five children, as follows : Philip, a government forest
ranger in his native land ; Frank Paul, a merchant of McKees Rocks, Penn-
sylvania ; Charles F., of whom further ; Amelia, now Mrs. Herman, of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; Otto, a resident of Pittsburgh, where he is em-
ployed by the Carnegie Steel Company.

(H) Charles F. Steedle, third child of Jacob and Marie Anne (Miller)
Steedle, was born in the old family home at Leinhein, Baden, Germany,
February 2, 1852. His childhood and early youth were passed in his native
region, and after receiving the customary education in the local volkeschule,
he learned the trade of shoemaker. When he had attained the age of
eighteen years, he joined the great stream of emigration setting from Ger-
many to the United States during the middle decades of the nineteenth
century, caused by the social disturbances in the Fatherland, Upon reaching
America he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he settled, finding em-
ployment in the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1892 he became what, in the
vernacular of the steel factory, is known as "shear boss," at the Thirty-
third Street Mill, a position which he held for some time. Later he worked
for a time for the Rider and Conley Company, but in 1894 he abandoned
this kind of work temporarily, and opened a hotel at Thirty-fourth street
snd Penn avenue, Pittsburgh, which he conducted for a period of ten years.
In 1904, however, he returned to the employ of the Carnegie Company, and
has remained with this concern ever since, and is at present living in Mc-
Kees Rocks, Pennsylvania, with his son. Dr. Joseph G. Steedle. He was



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 169

married to Elizabeth Kirch, a native of Pittsburgh, where she was born
November i, 1850, and a daughter of Mathias and Elizabeth (Newman)
Kirch, both natives of Germany, and married there before their migration
to the United States. Mr. Kirch was a shoemaker in the Fatherland, and
continued to work at his trade after he became a resident of Pittsburgh,
and up to the breaking out of the Civil War. He then enlisted in Company
M, Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry, and after a year's service was killed in a
skirmish at Williamsport, Virginia. He was survived by Mrs. Kirch, who
lived to the age of seventy-nine years. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Kirch
were: Wendall, a soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, and
killed at the battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse; Elizabeth, the mother of
our subject ; Jacob, was a glass worker in Pittsburgh, now deceased ; Mary,
now Mrs. Jacob Goulantz, of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania; George, a resi-
dent of Pittsburgh and "shear boss" at the "One-hundred-and-eight Inch
Mill" at Homestead, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Steedle Sr. is, like the rest of her
father's family, a staunch member of the Roman Catholic Church, attending
St. Mary's Church of that denomination at McKees Rocks. To Mr. and
Mrs. Charles F. Steedle were born four children, as follows : Mary, mar-
ried Mr. W. J. Heiser, a merchant of McKees Rocks ; Joseph G., of whom
further; Clara M., married Mr. William M. Herbst, a carpenter of McKees
Rocks ; Elizabeth Gertrude, unmarried and living with her parents at 1037
Chartiers avenue, McKees Rocks, their home since 1902.

(Ill) Dr. Joseph G. Steedle, the second child of Charles F. and Eliza-
beth (Kirch) Steedle, was born March 10, 1880, on Eighteenth street, Pitts-
burgh, Pennsylvania. The first part of his education was obtained at the
St. Augustine Parochial School in that city, and from there went to the
schools of the Second Ward, Pittsburgh, for a year, 1893-94. He next
went to the McCurry University from which he graduated with the class
of 1898. As he approached an age to make a decision, the attention of the
young man was more and more favorably turned to the profession of medi-
cine as a career for himself, and in 1898 he matriculated at the Western
Pennsylvania Medical College, graduating therefrom with the class of 1902.
The practical experience requisite he obtained by means of an interneship of
four months in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, and one of thirteen
months in the City Home and Hospital at Marshalsea, Pennsylvania. In
the year 1904 Dr. Steedle established himself in general practice in McKees
Rocks, a practice which has continued to grow since that time. Dr. Steedle
is not the kind of man, however, to rest content with his progress in medicine
merely because his practice is growing. On the contrary, his constant care
is to keep fully abreast of the continual advances which his science is mak-
ing, and to this end he is a painstaking and close student. To this end, also,
he took a post-graduate course in electro-therapeutics at the Illinois School
of Electro-Therapeutics at Chicago, Illinois. Besides the conduct of his
practice and studies, Dr. Steedle is very active in the professional organiza-
tions, both local and general, as indeed he is in many social and fraternal
organizations also. He is a member of the McKees Rocks Medical Society.



I70 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

the Allegheny County Medical Society and the American Medical Associa-
tion. He is also a member of the Phi Beta Pi Medical Fraternity, Alpha
Chapter, and was largely instrumental in organizing the Gamma Chapter
of the same fraternity at the Jefferson Medical College. Besides these
medical organizations, Dr. Steedle is a member of Lodge No. 1263, Benevo-
lent and Protective Order of Elks ; of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. No.
1331, of which also he is the past worthy president; of the McKees Rocks
Lodge of the Order of Moose; of the Monongahela Council and the Fort
Pitt Assembly of the Knights of Columbus ; of the Catholic Mutual Benefit
Association ; of the Knights of St. George ; and of the Modern Woodmen of
the World. He has been appointed to the staff of the Ohio Valley Hospital,
as a surgeon, and now makes a specialty of surgical worth and X-ray prac-
tice.

Always interested keenly in the affairs of his community, Dr. Steedle
has of recent years taken an active part in Republican politics, and was
elected on that party's ticket as burgess of McKees Rocks, serving in that
capacity from March 3, 1909, to January i, 1914. He is at present repre-
senting the eleventh district of Allegheny county. Pennsylvania, in the state
legislature, for the term of 1913-14. member of committees on appropria-
tions, public health and sanitation, railways, counties and townships, and
there seems every reason to believe that his career in politics as well as in
his profession will be brilliant. He is a virile young man who has already
accomplished great things for his age, with a strong face and compelling
personality, a man who although only thirty-four years of age is a factor
in the general life of his community. Dr. Steedle is unmarried. He is
a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church, attending the Church of St.
Mary at McKees Rocks, and is prominent in Catholic social circles.



Jacob Herbst is a member of a Prussian family, both his
HERBST paternal and maternal grandparents having been natives of
that kingdom. Indeed, about all that is known of them is that
they were there born and there passed their entire lives.

(I) John T. Herbst, father of Jacob Herbst, was likewise born in Prus-
sia in the year 182 1. He was one of three children, having had a sister,
who died in Germany while still a young woman, and a brother, Matthias,
who remained in Germany at the time of the emigration of Mr. Herbst Sr.,
and of whom the latter eventually lost all trace. John T. Herbst, himself,
grew to manhood on a farm in his native region, and migrated to the United
States during one of the most stirring periods of German history, when the
conflict between the newly awakening democratic idea and the intrenched
power of aristocracy were threatening dissention and rupture throughout the
structure of the German body politic, and driving so many of the best sons
of Germany to seek asylum across the seas in the great republic of the
New World. It was at this period that there came to America a great throng
of the liberty loving spirits of the Fatherland, including such men as Carl
Schurz and his confreres, which formed one of the most valuable elements



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 171

added of recent years to the great composite population of America. It
was during this high water period, alike in quality and quantity, of German
immigration to the United States, in the year 1840, to be explicit, that John
T. Herbst crossed the ocean to these shores. He settled in the city of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, finding employment as a farm hand in the outlying
rural districts, until by dint of hard work and frugality, he was able to
purchase a farm for himself in Chartiers township. He finally removed to
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1869, when only forty-eight
years of age. Personally he was rather a striking figure. A man of the
simple peasant type, but of great physical strength, he measured over six
feet in height, and was a prodigious worker. As in the case of all the Herbst
family, both before and after, he was a devout member of the Roman
Catholic Church, attending St. Mary's Church of that denomination at
McKees Rocks. Pennsylvania. He married Eleanor Moller, also a native of
Prussia, and one of a family of three children, all of whom came from the
Fatherland to Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. The other members of the Moller
family were the two brothers, Michael, who died in Pittsburgh in the early
sixties, and John Adam, who served in the German army for twelve years
and then migrated to Pittsburgh, where he died in the nineties. To Mr. and
Mrs. John T. Herbst were born eight children, as follows: i. Michael, died
in childhood. 2. Theresa, deceased, wife of Andrew May. 3. Michael, no\y
a gardener, living in Kennedy township, Allegheny county. Pennsylvania.
4. John, a farmer in the same township. 5. Jacob, of whom further. 6.
Matthias, now conducting a grocery business on Chartiers avenue, McKees
Rocks, Pennsylvania. 7. Laura, now Mrs. Henry Korn. 8. Margaret,
now Mrs. Otto Buttner. 9. Mary. 10. Barbara, now Mrs. Charles Wher-
ling, of Pittsburgh.

(H) Jacob Herbst, fifth child and son of John T. and Eleanor (Moller)
Herbst, was born November 2, 1858, on his father's farm in Chartiers town-
ship, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. There, also, he passed his childhood,
attending for a short time the neighboring parochial school, where he gained
but a meagre education. This was due to being obliged to leave when but
ten years of age. by his father's death occurring in 1869. After this mis-
fortune, the children of the family were all obliged to seek work as soon
as they reached an age which made it possible, and club their small earnings
together for the support of the family. They worked continuously, both on
their own farm and on the farms surrounding, where they could find employ-
ment. It thus happened that the childhood and youth of Jacob Herbst
knew but little of the softening influences of play and leisure, and serves to
illustrate conspicuously that there are more roads than one to success and
prominence in this many sided democracy of the western world. Uf)on
reaching the completion of his twenty-fourth year Mr. Herbst left home, and
went to McKees Rocks, where he learned the trade of carpenter under Steve
Schram, for whom he worked for two years. He next found employment
in his trade with William Zinkham in the same town, and worked for him
between five and six yearS; The habits of thrift inculcated at once by the



172 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

family traditions and the hard experience of his early years now stood him
in good stead, and out of his earnings he was enabled to save enough to
start himself, in 1890, in the contracting business, in which enterprise he
prospered greatly. It was at the greatest development of McKees Rocks,
and Mr. Herbst took an active part in building up the town, erecting a large
number of houses. In the year 1898 he withdrew from the contracting bus-
iness altogether and bought out the Thomas Calhoun Lumber Company, the
yards of which were located on Carson street, Pittsburgh, for three years,
when the plant was moved to Bradley street near Island avenue, McKees
Rocks. This business he conducted under the firm name of J. Herbst &
Company, his partners being his brother John and two brothers-in-law.
Eventually the brothers-in-law withdrew from the firm which now consists
simply of the two brothers, Jacob and John, the former, however, having
much the larger interest and being in entire control. Mr. Herbst does the
largest retail lumber business in the city of McKees Rocks with its fifteei!
thousand inhabitants. Besides the lumber, he also carries a full line of
builders' supplies. Besides the conduct of his business, in which he has been
extremely successful, Mr. Herbst takes an active interest in local affairs, and
is a moving factor in the community. A Democrat in politics, he has been
twice elected to serve on the city council on the ticket of that party, and is
now burgess of McKees Rocks, elected to that office in the fall of 1913. His
residence, a commodious brick building, is situated at No. 918 First street,
McKees Rocks. Mr. Herbst and his family are members of the Catholic
Church of St. Mary, of which he was a trustee at the time of its erection.
He is also a member of the Knights of St. George.

Mr. Herbst married, in May, 1884, Mary Yunker, a daughter of Peter
Yunker, and to them were born ten children, as follows: i. William M.,
born May 9, 1885 ; now holds the position of assistant manager in his father's
lumber company ; married Clara Steel and by her has had one child, Eliza-
beth, born June 7, 1912. 2. Elizabeth, now Mrs. John Waldron, of Sheridan,
where her husband is an electrician. 3. Emma, who has entered an order
of nuns, her religious name being Sister Elizabeth. 4. Andrew, a moving
picture operator in Denver, Colorado. 5. John, a mail carrier. 6. Agnes,
living at home. 7. Hermann, now attending the Carnegie Technical In-
stitute. 8. Sylvester, now in St. Mary's parochial school. 9. Bernadette. 10.
Eleanor.



The two generations of this old Welsh family that have been
BLICK active in the state of Penn.sylvania have indeed performed works

creditable to the name and valuable to humanity. Both have
to the same end, although in widely diverse channels, been the saving and
safe-guarding of human life and the lessening of the dangers that surround
it. The manner in which each has accomplished this end appears in the fol-
lowing record. James Blick was the first of his line to find an American
home, Wales being the land of his birth, where his parents spent their
entire lives. His father was identified with mining in the homeland through-



WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 173

out his active life in tlie capacity of mine superintendent, a position to which
he had aspired while in humbler mine service and which he had attained
through determined application and sterling ability. He was a soldier in the
English army for several years, and with his wife belonged to the Episcopal
Church. He died in Berkley, Wales. He was the father of: i. Edward, a
merchant of Cleveland, Ohio, where he died. 2. William, died January 31,
1914, overseer of the dock-yards in Liverpool, England. 3. Rose, died in
Wales. 4. Hannah, died in England. 5. Anna, married William Fryer, and
resides in Liverpool, England. 6. James, of whom further.

(H) James Blick was born in Wales, died in Crafton, Allegheny county,
Pennsylvania, January 4, 191 1. He began work in the mines of his native
land as a youth of eight years, and although finding little opportunity for
scholastic training was all his life a student, mastering subjects that attracted
him with apparent ease and becoming remarkably well-informed on many
subjects of general culture. His studious habits led him to a great interest
in mining problems, and in time he became a junior mine official. After his
marriage in 1877, he came to the United States, working in Pennsylvania,
later settling in the Pittsburgh district. He qualified as a fire-boss, a mine
foreman, and later as an inspector under the laws of Pennsylvania, and
during the years (twenty) that he was mine inspector of the Seventh Bi-
tuminous District of Pennsylvania his deep knowledge of mining and prac-
tical ideas of how dangers were to be mitigated or avoided impressed all
with whom he came into contact. He was one of the first of the mine
officials of the Commonwealth to call attention to the dangers incident to
the drilling of oil and gas wells through coal seams in adjacency to mines,
and several times appeared before committees of the general assembly to
advocate legislation governing the drilling of such wells and their fortifica-
tion against leakage into mines. In his annual report some time in the last
decade of the last century he earnestly and learnedly presented phases of this
menace, and suggested remedies. In the proceedings of the Coal Institute of
America, in which he took an active interest, his name appears frequently
as the author of papers and in the discussions. Mr. Blick was one of the
early advocates of a revision of mining laws of the state, and was an im-
portant member of the committee which formulated the law that was enacted
in 1893, ^"d which still ranks as perhaps the best mining code extant, al-
though many of its provisions are now obsolete as a result of improvements
and new discoveries in mining. In 1902 he was dispatched upon a European
tour by President Roosevelt as a special agent to study mining conditions in
foreign countries, and as a result of his complete and elaborate report on
the subject some of the best of the ideas with which he had returned from
abroad were advanced as bills and enacted as laws, among them the triple
entry system. Mr. Blick's income from his government position, although
moderate, was adequate for all of his needs, and he refused an exceedingly
remunerative offer from a wealthy corporation in order that he might con-
tinue the work that he had begun, the lure of material inducements not
tempting him in the slightest degree to forsake his task.



174 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

He married, in Wales, Catherine Lewis, a native of that country, who
now Hves in Crafton, Pennsylvania. Children of James and Catherine
(Lewis) Blick : i. John, an engineer on the Pennsylvania Railroad, lives in
Carnegie, Pennsylvania. 2. Esther, lives at home, unmarried. 3. Priscilla,
married David F. McRoberts, and resides in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. 4.
James, a mechanical engineer in the employ of the Cambria Steel Company,
at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. 5. Clara, married William A. England, and
lives at home. 6. William, of whom further. 7. Margaret, married Rev.
Malcolm A. Laing, and resides in Emsworth, Pennsylvania.

(Ill) Dr. William Blick, son of James and Catherine (Lewis) Blick,
was born in Mercer, Mercer county, Pennsylvania, March 4, 1882, entering
the University of Pittsburgh after the completion of his preliminary educa-
tion. He there studied for two years in the civil engineering course, after
that completing a medical course of four years, receiving his diploma in 1910.
After his graduation he performed interne duty at Columbia Hospital, Wil-
kinsburg, Pennsylvania, for seven months, at the MSassachusetts General
Hospital, Boston, for five months, and at Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, for
one year. Thus fully prepared for active practice he became identified with
his profession in Crafton, where he has since been located. Aside from a
large practice he has become prominent in his profession in the Pittsburgh
locality, demonstrating in surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, serving
on the Crafton board of health, and medical examiner of schools in Thorn-
burg and Green Tree under appointment by the State Health Commission.
Thoroughly proficient in all the art of medicine and surgery. Dr. Blick has
given especial study to gastro-intestinal diseases, and it is in this branch,
of his profession that his highest aspirations lie, ambitions for which one
may with confidence prophesy realization. In the choosing of his career Dr.
Blick was not solely intent upon the study and practice of medicine, but
before deciding to make that his life work had completed all preparations
for entrance into the navy of the United States, more mature consideration
altering his purpose. While a student at college he was chosen for mem-
bership in the Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, and now belongs to the County,
State and American Medical associations. His political sympathies are
with the Republican party, and he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.



Distinction and patriotic service marked the colonial history of
ROSS this line of the Ross family, as it did that of the families with

which the name has been united through marriage. The family
of Ross is of Scotch origin, although the American ancestor of the line was
])orn in the north of Ireland in 17CK). This was Robert Ross, a Seceder in
religion, who about 1745 immigrated to the American colonies, settling in
Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Here he lived until the outbreak of the
war of the Revolution, when he, his sons, and their families traveled by