History of Bedford and Somerset Counties, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and personal history

1906·43.3 MB·English

by  Blackburn, E. Howard

attention:
C£h] BAR CODE IS LOCATED
INSIDE OF BOOK
Digitized by the Internet Archive
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History of Bedford and
Somerset Cos. Pa.
,

HISTORY
OF
BEDFORD AND SOMERSET
COUNTIES
PENNSYLVANIA
WITH GENEALOGICAL AND PERSONAL HISTORY
BEDFORD COUNTY SOMERSET COUNTY
BY BY
E. HOWARD BLACKBURN WILLIAM H. WELFLEY
UndertheEditorialSupervisionof
Hon. William H. Koontz
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUVIB III
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK CHICAGO
::
1906
UiBI COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
FOm WAYNE, INDIANA
Reprinted I983 for the Historica] and Genealogical Society
of Somerset County, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A. by
Walsworth Publishing
Marcel ine, MO. 6A658
Regional Director:
WAI-MWORTH
UI DON MN.L*. MC
SalwTi WV 7A426
[phone]
7050633
j^'irC/^.^t^
Bedford and Somerset Counties.
HON. ALEXANDER HAMILTON COFFROTH.
Alexander H. Coffroth, for many years a leading figure in
his profession and in the public life of the commonwealth dur-
ing the dramatic period leading up to and culminating in the
Civil war, was intensely active and broadly useful during his
entire career. His abilities would undoubtedly have com-
manded his entrance upon highest places had not his in-
flexible devotion to principle held him to a political party which
was constantly in the minority.
General Coffroth was a native of Pennsylvania, born in
Somerset, May 18, 1828. He was the youngest son of John
and Maiy (Besore) Coffroth, the father born in Hagerstown,
Maryland, of German descent, and the mother born in Green-
castle. Pennsylvania, of English ancestry. These parents re-
moved in 1808 from Greencastle to Somerset, where the father
was among the early settlers, and the first to set up a store,
bringing his merchandise from the east on pack-horses. Mr.
Coffroth was a man of excellent character, and his wife was
a model of womanhood, whose kindliness of dis]^osition, purity
of conduct and energy of character were reflected in the son.
Young Coffroth made of himself a fine exemi)lification of
the truly self-made man in the best sense of that oft-abused
term. Early thrown u])on his own resources, he entered upon
and waged the battle of life in such masterly fashion as to
not only provide himself an ample equipment for the large
duties which were to devolve upon him, but to also develop to
their fullest his fine natural gifts of soul and intellect. He
attended the common schools, and out of the fruits of his own
labors defrayed the expenses of a more liberal education in the
old Somerset Academy. For a time he served efficiently as
a school teacher, and with the means thus earned supported
himself while preparing for his chosen ]irofession, the law.
It was his great good fortune to attract the interest and friend-
ship of the distinguished Jeremiah S. Black, in whose office
and under whose preceptorshi]) he read industriously for some
years, meantime and for five years, beginning at the age of
eighteen, serving as editor of the Somerset Visitor, a Demo-
cratic journal of no inconsiderable circulation and influence.
Vol. Ill 1