BIOGRAPHY: James A. DYSART, Mifflin County, PA

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The Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley, Comprising 
the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry, Pennsylvania.
Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. Runk & Co., 1897, Volume I, pages 517-518.

  JAMES A. DYSART, retired farmer, Newton Hamilton, Mifflin county, Pa., was 
born December 23, 1837, in Wayne township, Mifflin county.  He is a son of John 
and Rebecca (Cunningham) Dysart.  His grandfather, Joseph Dysart, who was a 
native of Ireland, of the Scotch-Irish race, settled at an early period in Wayne 
township, where he bought 250 acres of land.  He also owned land in Sinking 
Valley, Blair county.  He built a barn and a frame dwelling house, cleared a 
portion of the land and made other improvements.  He was a valuable and much 
respected citizen.  His specialty was stock-raising, his horses being especially 
celebrated for their beauty and excellence.  He married Miss Peterson, of Wayne 
township.  Their children were:  James;  Joseph;  John and William.  Both Joseph 
Dysart and his wife died on the homestead farm.  They were buried at McVeytown.  
His son, John Dysart, the father of James A. Dysart, also followed farming in 
Wayne township, where he owned a farm of 118 acres, and was celebrated as a 
stock-raiser.  Like his father, he was an upright man, of strict veracity and 
respected by all.  He was also a brave soldier in the war of 1812 against Great 
Britain.  His constitution was undermined by exposure while in service, which 
led eventually to his death.  He was a Democrat.  He served his township as 
school director.  He was a member of the Presbyterian church.  John Dysart was 
married in Wayne township to Rebecca, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary Cunningham, 
born in Chester county.  Her father at the time of their marriage was a farmer 
in Wayne township.  They had seven children, as follows:  Elizabeth, deceased, 
was the wife of Arthur H. Clark, a merchant of Newton Hamilton;  Mary (Mrs. 
Samuel B. McCord), of Bedford, Pa.;  William, who died in youth;  Hannah, who 
died at an early age;  Margaret J. (Mrs. James N. Postlethwait), of Wayne 
township;  James A., of Newton Hamilton;  and Jonathan, deceased.  John Dysart 
died on the farm in 1842;  his widow died at the homestead in 1888.
  James A. Dysart attended the subscription school in the old log school house 
in Wayne township, as well as the public schools.  He continued his education in 
a high school at Shade Gap, Huntingdon county;  in the Milnwood Academy, where 
he spent three terms, and in an academy in Juniata county, which he attended for 
two terms.  After this he went to farming in Wayne township.  His father died 
when he was five years old.  At the age of twenty he took charge of the home 
farm and cultivated it for thirty-one years, assisting in the support of his 
widowed mother and the family, and at the same time making considerable 
improvement on the homestead.  In 1890, selling the farm and purchasing a fine 
brick building in Newton Hamilton, he retired from active duties, and before 
settling to his life of leisure made a pleasure tour through the Western States.  
Mr. Dysart served for two months in 1862 in Company F. Forty-sixth Pennsylvania 
Volunteer Militia, and at the expiration of the time was honorably mustered out 
at Camp Curtin, Harrisburg.  In Wayne township he has filled the offices of 
school director, tax collector, assessor and auditor.  In the borough on Newton 
Hamilton he has been school director for six years and assessor for two terms.  
He has also been honored with the position of auditor of Mifflin county, being 
elected on the Democratic ticket.  He is a member of McVeytown Lodge No. 376, F. 
and A. M., at McVeytown.
  In 1865 James Dysart was married in Wayne township to Elizabeth McManigal, 
born at Lewistown, daughter of Sheriff McManigal, of Mifflin county.  To this 
union was born one child, Ann Elizabeth (Mrs. John Drake), of Wayne township.  
Mrs. Elizabeth (McManigal) Dysart died July 31, 1869.  Mr. Dysart was married 
again, January 16, 1872, to Miss Lizzie Withrow, born in Wayne township.  She 
died April 24, 1874.  Mr. Dysart is emphatically one of "nature's noblemen," 
respected and beloved by all who know him.  He has been for the past eighteen 
years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church;  has been active as a teacher 
and superintendent in Sunday-school work;  has been trustee of the church, and 
held other offices.