BIO: Joseph Emery GEARHART, Clearfield County, PA
 
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From Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania,
and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr.,
Chicago: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911, pages 343-345.
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  J. E. GEARHART, a progressive, enterprising and representative business man of 
Clearfield, Pa., manager of the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company and of the 
Keystone Vacuum Cleaner, is a member of one of the old settled families of the 
county.
  His great grandfather, John Gearhart, emigrated from Germany about the middle 
of the seventeenth century.  He served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, 
afterward settled at Buffalo Run, Centre Co., Pa.  He married Miss Catharine 
Gray, who lived to the age of 97 years.  To John and Catharine were born ten 
children, whose names were as follows, - Jacob, John, Adam, Christ, Elias, 
Peter, Susanna, Eve, Betsey and Catharine.  These have all died long ago.
  John Gearhart, the second in order and grandfather of J. E. Gearhart, was born 
in 1789.  He married Miss Lydia Shivery.  He served in the War of 1812 and was 
there when his eldest son David was born.  He moved to Clearfield County in 
1820.  He died in 1871 having lived to the age of 82, and his wife Lydia died at 
the age of 90 within a few days.  To John and Lydia Gearhart were born eleven 
children, one dying in infancy, the other ten living to a ripe age, whose names 
were as follows, - David, Sarah, Catharine, who is yet living at the advanced 
age of 95, John S. the father of J. E. Gearhart, Susanna, Andrew, Jane, Enoch, 
Hannah, and Jacob, who is yet living.
  John S. Gearhart was born April 20th, 1818, on his father's farm near 
Philipsburg, Clearfield Co.  He also was an agriculturist and spent the greater 
part of his life on his farm situated in Boggs Township, two miles northwest of 
Blue Ball, in Clearfield County, where his death occurred Mar. 26, 1903, at the 
age of eighty-four years.  He was twice married, first to Lydia Showalter, whose 
death occurred July 3, 1850, when their youngest son, J. E. Gearhart, was 
fifteen months old.  J. E. Gearhart was born April 22, 1849.  There were three 
other children born to this union, namely:  William, who was a gallant soldier 
in the Civil War, a member of Co. E, 45th Pa. Vol. Inf., and who died of 
starvation in the Confederate prison at Salisbury, N. C., December 10, 1864; 
Ellis, who died at the age of twenty-one years; and Lloyd, who is a resident of 
Clearfield.  The second marriage of John S. Gearhart was to Elizabeth Smith, 
whose death preceded that of her husband by four years, she dying Feb. 14, 1898.  
Eight children were born to this marriage, namely:  George S., who lives in 
Clearfield; John W., who owns the home farm in Boggs Township; A. Clark, who 
lives in Blair County; Samuel, whose business is carried on at Clearfield; Lydia 
J., who is the wife of Charles Rickets, of Altoona; James, who is a resident of 
Braddock, Pa.; Charles, who died when seventeen years old; and Lewis, who lives 
at Pittsburg, Pa.
  Joseph Emery Gearhart grew to manhood on the home farm and obtained his 
education in the country schools.  After he reached manhood he went to work for 
the lumber firm of Hoover, Hughes & Co., at Bellefonte, Pa., with operations 
near Philipsburg, and remained with them for nine years, and during that time 
shipped the most of the lumber that was used in the erection of the buildings 
for the great Centennial Exposition.  From youth Mr. Gearhart has been more or 
less interested in mechanics and has invented many devices and utensils of 
practical use, some of which having been patented, are now manufactured in large 
numbers.  He worked on a knitting machine until he perfected every part of it 
and received a patent and in 1889 opened a small shop at Blue Ball for its 
manufacture.  The machine was so well received that by 1890 the business had 
outgrown his quarters at Blue Ball and he then moved to Clearfield and erected 
his present plant on Nichols Street, and also a factory in Canada.  Under the 
name of the Gearhart Family Knitter, with ribbing attachment which produces 
seamless hosiery, Mr. Gearhart's invention is sold in all countries and with its 
attachments has been patented in the United States and in thirteen foreign 
countries.  In connection with knitting machines, Mr. Gearhart manufactures and 
has on the market, The Keystone Vacuum Cleaner, and this invention promises to 
equal his others in popularity.  Mr. Gearhart is a natural mechanic but he 
attributes a measure of his success to the instruction he received from his 
father-in-law, the late John Middleton, who was an expert machinist and gunsmith 
as his father before him had been, the latter manufacturing guns during the 
Revolutionary War for the Patriot army.
  Mr. Gearhart was married July 6, 1871, to Miss May E. Middleton, a daughter of 
John Middleton, who came to Clearfield from Cambria County.  Eight children were 
born to Mr. And Mrs. Gearhart, namely:  Sophia, who is the wife of James 
Gleason, a leading member of the Clearfield bar, residing at Du Bois, and they 
have one son, James Joseph; Leonard A.; Ada B., who married Dr. George R. Irwin, 
of Clearfield and they have four children - Robert, Dorothy, George and Joseph; 
John R., who resides in Clearfield, married Blanche Cardon and they have one 
son, William; Edna, who married B. R. Freer of Chicago and they have one child, 
Majorie; Jessie P., who is the wife of George A. Cardon, of Pittsburg; May, who 
married J. Emmett Harder, of Clearfield and they have one son, John Emmett; and 
Emery J., who is connected with an advertising house, at Chicago, Ill.
  Mr. And Mrs. Gearhart are members of the M. E. Church in the work of which he 
has been very active for years.