Page:History of the newspapers of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.djvu/192

156 HISTORY OF BEAVER COUNTY PAPERS. Virginia Cavalry in July 1863, and he was mustered out of service August 8, 1864; he was captured June 20, 1864, put in prison at Lynchburg, Va,, and while on the way to Ahdersonville, with three comrades jumped from the train about twenty miles south of Burkesville Junction July 19, and after ten days and nights of suffering and hunger, walking in the night, and hiding during the day, reached General Meade's headquarters at Petersburg, Va., July 30, 1864, passing through the right wing of General Eobert E. Lee's grand Confederate army. He entered the Civil Service July 1865, where he served ten years; was educated in the common schools and Mount Union College Ohio; entered the ministry of the M. E. Church March 1868, but was compelled to abandon it on accoimt of failure of voice ; was a member of the M. E. Church nearly thirty-nine years; official member thirty-five years, Sunday School superintendent twenty- seven years, and united with the Presbyterian Church October 1904; is president of the American Porcelain Company New Brighton, Pa. ; served in the school board and council of the borough, and as member and secretary of the Republican County Committee; he is a member of the American Historical Association, the Historical Society of Washington county. Pa., the Grand Army of the Republic, and of the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the American Revolution, both of his sons being members of the latter. He prepared and had presented to the Legislature, a biU governing the primary elections of the Republican party of Beaver county, which was enacted into a law in 1881, the first- primary law in the State. In 1872, he wrote a series of twenty-five articles on the Beaver Valley for the Pitts- burg "Gazette," and a history of the Harmony Society at Economy, Pa., for the Pittsburg "Christian Advocate;" for his paper a history of his escape from Confederate prison and other articles on the Civil War;