BIOGRAPHY: Frank E. FARRELL, 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. 105-6
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FRANK E. FARRELL, Morrellville, Pennsylvania, an enterprising business man, and 
a member of the firm of Farrell & Kredel, who own and conduct drug stores at 
Johnstown and Morrellville, is a son of John and Hannah (Grigsby) Farrell, and 
was born in the city of Philadelphia, April 26, 1865. In the latter part of the 
eighteenth century we have record of Edward Farrell, of French lineage, as a 
resident of County Longford, Ireland, where his son, John Farrell, was born. 
John Farrell left his native island at an early age, settling in Baltimore, 
where he learned blacksmithing and the trade of machinist. After working for a 
short time as a machinist he joined the tide of westward emigration, and became 
a resident of the State of Ohio, where he soon came into prominence as an 
extensive contractor and road builder. He constructed the present main streets 
of Zanesville and Cambridge, Ohio, and built in that state over twenty miles of 
the "National road," or "old pike," besides completing many other contracts of 
important pieces of work. He married Mary Grace, and died in 1852, leaving a 
family of eight children, four sons and four daughters, all of whom are now 
deceased, except one daughter and a son, John H. Farrell, the father of the 
subject of this sketch.
     John H. Farrell was born at Somerset, Ohio, November 15, 1840, received his 
education in the public schools and the Catholic parochial schools of 
Zanesville, that state. He learned milling and millwrighting, in which lines he 
was actively engaged in the east and south until May 31, 1889. In 1895 he opened 
his present grocery store at Morrellville. He made a specialty of changing 
flouring mills from the old burr to the new roller process, and had charge in 
New York of the first full roller process that was built in this country until 
the miller engaged was able to operate it. He managed and constructed roller 
process mills in Philadelphia, New York, Richmond, Atlanta, Brooklyn, and other 
cities. In 1889 he came from Selins Grove, this State, to Johnstown, and acted 
as manager of the Cambria Flouring mills, which were destroyed by the great 
flood of that year. He is frequently consulted and asked for advice by those who 
are constructing flouring-mills in this and other states. Mr. Farrell is a 
republican in politics, and evinced his patriotism during the Civil War, serving 
for two months in the Seventy-eighth regiment of Ohio volunteers, where he acted 
as drill-master. A part of the time during the war he was stationed at 
Philadelphia as inspector of flour.
     In 1864, Mr. Farrell married Hannah Grigsby, a daughter of James M. 
Grigsby, a resident of Zanesville, Ohio, and to their union was born one child, 
Frank E. Farrell, who received his education in the public and private schools 
of Zanesville, Ohio; Brooklyn, New York, and Philadelphia, this State. He spent 
several months in the then great dry goods house of Hood, Bonbright & Co., in 
Philadelphia, and then entered the drug store of D. R. Baird, of Johnstown, 
which he and his present partner, Kredel, purchased in March, 1889. They also 
established a branch drug store at Morrellville, and two months later the great 
flood swept their Johnstown property away. In a short time they reopened their 
Johnstown drug business in their present establishment, at No. 114 Clinton 
street. Mr. Farrell now personally supervises the Morrellville branch and Mr. 
Kredel attends to the Johnstown branch of their extensive business. They carry a 
large stock of pure and fresh drugs and give special attention to the filling of 
recipes and compounding of physicians' prescriptions.
     On April 28, 1896, Mr. Farrell was united in marriage with Bessie 
Somerville, a daughter of Edwin Somerville, a resident and well-known citizen of 
West Taylor township, Cambria county.
     In politics Mr. Farrell has always been a republican, though neither 
partisan nor politician. He received his pharmaceutical education in the Chicago 
College of Pharmacy. He is persistent and pushing, and has achieved signal 
success in the large business that he has built up in such a short time.