BIOGRAPHY: Thomas J. ITELL, 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. 328-30
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THOMAS J. ITELL, one of the young and rising lawyers of Johnstown and central 
Pennsylvania, is a son of John and Lucinda (Eckenrod) Itell, and was born July 
4, 1862, in that part of Washington township which is now Portage township, 
Cambria county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Itell was reared on a farm, attended the 
common schools, and after teaching three terms entered the State Normal school 
at Indiana, Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated two years later in the 
class of 1885. The next year he became principal of the Millville high school, 
which position he resigned in 1888 to assume the principalship of the Conemaugh 
borough public schools. In connection with these positions he made use of part 
of his vacations for conducting teachers' normal classes. His active labors 
created for a time as a teacher on October 20, 1889, when he became a special 
reporter on the Johnstown Daily Democrat. In the latter capacity he interviewed 
many of the prominent men of the boroughs of Johnstown, Conemaugh, Millville, 
Cambria, Woodvale, Prospect and Grubbtown, upon the question of consolidating 
them into the present city of Johnstown. Several of these interviews were 
published in the Democrat every day for two weeks preceding the election in 
November, 1889, and contributed largely in influencing the favorable vote cast 
at that election for city organization. After the city of Johnstown was 
organized on April 1, 1890, he served for two years as principal of the Iron 
street school, and on June 1, 1892, became a student in the law office of James 
M. Walters, Esq., at that time solicitor for the City of Johnstown. He was 
admitted to the Cambria county bar on August 20, 1894, and immediately opened an 
office in Johnstown, where he has built up a fine law practice. Energetic and 
progressive, he is a careful student and a hard worker and belongs to that class 
of men whose success is solely due to their own efforts. In politics Mr. Itell 
is a democrat, having been one of the nominees of his party for the legislature 
in 1896, but shared the fate of his party in being defeated.
     On May 16, 1889, Thomas J. Intell married a school-teacher, Mary C. 
McMullen, a daughter of H.A. McMullen, of Johnstown, the wedding taking place in 
St. John's Roman Catholic church of Johnstown. To their union have been born two 
children, a son and a daughter; John Bryant, and Marie C., aged respectively, 
now, six and four years.
     John Itell, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born August 20, 
1831, in Allegheny township, Cambria county, and commenced life with no capital 
but good health, stout hands, and unquestioned honesty. By hard labor and good 
management he has saved a competence, and owns, in Portage township, two farms, 
upon one of which he has resided for the last thirty-three years. He is an up-
to-date farmer and a consistent member of the Catholic church. On June 18, 1861, 
he married Lucinda Eckenrod, who was of German descent and a member of the 
Catholic church, and who died August 15, 1875, at thirty-seven years of age. She 
was a daughter of Peter Eckenrod, a native of Berks county, Pennsylvania, who 
came to Allegheny township, Cambria county, and followed farming until his 
death, which occurred in January, 1870, when in the seventy-first year of his 
age. John Itell is a son of Joseph Itell, who was born in the canton of Aargau, 
Switzerland, December 9, 1804, and in 1816 came too this country with his father 
John Itell, Sr., who died at Morrison's Cove, Blair county, at the ripe old age 
of ninety-six years. After coming to this country Joseph Itell passed several 
years in southeastern Pennsylvania and in the State of Delaware, and in 1827 
came to Cambria county, where he has followed farming every since. In 1830 he 
married Catherine Eberly, of French parentage and a native of Loretto, this 
county. Joseph Itell has always been a democrat in politics and a member of 
church. He bears up well under the weight of his ninety-two years, and comes of 
a family noted for its longevity. The Itell family had long been resident in 
Switzerland, and there spelled their name Eitel.