BIOGRAPHY: Valentine EICHENLAUB, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 286-7
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VALENTINE EICHENLAUB, general superintendent of the Glen Helen Colliery and Coke 
works at Amboy, Gallitzin township, this county, and operated by Taylor 
Brothers, 21 South Gay street, Baltimore, Maryland, and the Glen White mines of 
Blair county, this State, is a son of Joseph and Margaret (Sherry) Eichenlaub, 
and was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 9, 1846. His father and mother were 
both born in Germany, and after their marriage emigrated to this country, the 
former in 1832, his wife following in 1836. After a short residence in each of 
the cities of Pittsburg and Cincinnati, he came to Cambria county, locating at 
Ashland Furnace and St. Augustine, where he resided until 1859, when he removed 
to Blair county, this State, locating near Altoona, which was his residence 
until 1888, when he removed to Elstie, this county, at which place he still 
resides. Mr. Eichenlaub is a devoted member of the Roman Catholic church, as was 
also his wife up to the time of her death, which occurred in 1872.
     Valentine Eichenlaub had very poor advantages for securing an education so 
far as schools and textbooks go. His mental training is of a more practical 
character, and is such as he has been able to gain through general reading and 
attrition with the business world. Prior to the Civil War he was a day laborer. 
When the crisis of war was upon us, true to his patriotic instincts he entered 
the service of his country and, enlisted in company A, Second regiment of 
Pennsylvania cavalry, and was engaged in some of the most desperate battles of 
the war, in all fought in twenty-seven separate battles; he served until the 
close of the war, receiving his discharge at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 
13, 1865. He then went to Altoona, where he served an apprenticeship at the 
carpenter's bench. In 1869 he began working in the mines, where, after working 
for a period of five years, he was made foreman, which position he filled until 
November 30, 1895, when he was made general superintendent of the Coal and Coke 
Works of the Glen Helen colliery, of Gallitzin township, and of the Glen White 
mines of Blair county, Pennsylvania. From his former experience and his thorough 
knowledge of this line of business he has gained more than the ordinary 
qualifications for the position he now fills. Mr. Eichenlaub has been twice 
married. In 1868 be married Miss Catherine E. Conrad, of Indiana county, 
Pennsylvania, who died in 1876. To this marriage were born four children: Annie; 
Ellie; Joseph, deceased, and Maggie, who died in 1879. As his second wife he 
married, in September, 1877, Miss Margaret Kelly, of Blair county, and to this 
marital union the following children have been born: Mary, Willie, Gertrude, 
Della, Thomas, Bertha, James, Walter and Charles, deceased, and Francis Howard. 
During his life Mr. Eichenlaub has experienced two serious accidents. When 
fourteen years old he fell into the ice-cold water of Clearfield creek and was 
carried some distance down stream, when be made his escape more dead than alive, 
and was once buried under a fall of rock in the Glen White mines. While in the 
line of battle in front of Richmond, Virginia, he had his horse killed from 
under him by the rebels shelling from the rear, the shell struck the horse 
behind the saddle and plowed through his breast; in a desperate charge at 
Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, his horse fell, pinning its rider down while 
the rest of the column passed over as best they could.