BIOGRAPHY: John Evans, 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 1, 436-437.

  JOHN EVANS, Lewistown, Mifflin county, Pa., was born near Belleville, Union 
township, Mifflin county, Pa., on March 7, 1807.  He is the son of John and 
Catharine (Duff) Evans.  To his parents were born eleven children: Mary (Mrs. 
John Zook); Elizabeth (Mrs. Jacob Zook); Daniel; Samuel; Ann (Mrs. Henry Fagan); 
Katy (Mrs. James Ritchie); John; Naomi (Mrs. Dennis Coder); Obed; Cornelius; and 
Israel Walker.  The honoured parents of Mr. Evans lived to a ripe age, his 
father dying at the age of seventy-four, and his mother at ninety-three.  His 
mother was a daughter of Cornelius Duff, who through most of the years of the 
war of the Revolution was a soldier in the American army, and also served under 
Gen. Anthony Wayne in his campaign against the Indians of the West.  After 
selling his farms in Mifflin county and buying in Barre township, Huntingdon 
county, Pa., John Evans, Sr., on April 5, 1814, removed with his family to the 
latter place.  The son spent his boyhood on the farm, receiving his education in 
the "subscription schools" of the day.  When eighteen years of age he took 
charge of the farm for his father, and continued in this occupation until he was 
twenty.  Remote from the markets, and not satisfied with the necessarily meager 
returns to farming, he removed in May, 1827, to Lewistown, and entered on an 
apprenticeship of three years with Samuel J. Stewart at the trade of painting 
and paper-hanging.  Purchasing from his employer the last few weeks of his time, 
in the spring of 1830, he established himself in business, adding thereto the 
manufacture of chairs, and pursued with success his chosen occupation until the 
year 1872, when he retired from active business pursuits.
     On May 12, 1831, John Evans, Jr., was united in wedlock with Amelia, who 
was born December 9, 1810, daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Brannan) Major, 
and granddaughter of Peacock and Amy (Barton) Major.  Her grandfather, Peacock 
Major, was a lieutenant in the Pennsylvania Flying Camp of the war of the 
Revolution, 1776, and subsequently served in other organizations of the American 
army of the period.  Unto Mr. and Mrs. Evans were born eight children.  Of these 
two survive:  Rev. William Wilson Evans, D.D., now presiding elder of the 
Harrisburg district, Central Pennsylvania Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
church; and Catharine Amelia, wife of Edward Frysinger, of Lewistown, Pa.  Their 
deceased children are: four who died in early infancy; Mary Steele, wife of 
Hiram Willis Junkin; and Agnes Major.  In her girlhood, Mrs. Evans became a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal church at Lewistown, Pa., and Mr. Evans united 
with that communion in 1830.  On July 10, 1888, the beloved wife and mother 
ended a sweet and lovely earthly life in the holy triumph of the Christian 
faith.  Now past the age of ninety, Mr. Evans, with his mental faculties quite 
unimpaired, highly esteemed and venerated, cheerful and happy in spirit and 
mien, lives among the grandchildren of that generation in which he was numbered 
when he came to Lewistown in 1827.  Besides himself, of the male population of 
Lewistown when he removed thereto, only two survive, and they were little 
children at that time, aged respectively two and four years.  Mr. Evans has six 
surviving grandchildren: John Evans Junkin, Esq., of Sterling, Kan.; William 
Willis Junkin, optician, of Erie, Pa.; Mrs. Margaret Amelia (Junkin), wife of 
Mr. Means J. McCoy, of Lewistown, Pa.; Mary Evans, wife of Prof. Edward Bennett 
Rosa, Ph. D., of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.; Frysinger Evans, esq., 
of  Philadelphia, Pa.; and Agnes Frysinger, of Lewistown, Pa.  He has five 
great-grandsons: three, the sons of John Evans Junkin, Esq., and two, the sons 
of Mr. William Willis Junkin.