Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 432] senior member of the firm of Major & McCready, general merchants of Wampum, dealing in all kinds of dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, and clothing, is one of the prominent business men of that borough, and numbers his friends and patrons by the hundred. He came into this busy world May 4, 1857, at Middleton, Ohio; he was a son of William O. and Lena (Martin) Major. The mother was born in Mahoning Co., Ohio, Oct. 11, 1832.
Mr. Major passed his boyhood days in Middleton until he was eleven years of age, when he went to Carbon, Pa., and spent five years in the family of William Walters, a well-to-do farmer of that place. His next move brought him to Wampum, where he found work in the limestone quarries; in the brief period of six months he had become competent for the position of foreman of the quarry by diligent, intelligent service, and held that position for seventeen years.
In March, 1889, our subject determined to invest his earnings, and to engage in business, as an agreeable change from the life of hard work he had previously experienced. He accordingly purchased a half interest in a stock of goods, thereby becoming the junior member of the firm of Cunningham & Major. He has retained his partnership in the store since, although the first partnership was dissolved at the end of three years, and Mr. Braby displaced Mr. Cunningham. On Dec. 29, 1896, Mr. Braby transferred his interest to Hugh J. McCready, and the present style of the firm is Major & McCready. They conduct a well-appointed general store, having all the departments usually found in an establishment of that kind, such as dry goods, notions, clothing, boots, shoes, and groceries. They have the largest, neatest and best stock in the borough, and by placing before the people standard goods at moderate prices, they have built up a large trade. Being accommodating and courteous in their treatment of customers, they have hosts of business acquaintances, who have only the best words to speak of them. Mr. Major relied solely on his own efforts to win for him success in life, and to this success he has been entitled, and has enjoyed in a marked degree. He is a careful, conscientious business man, and his present position is as gratifying to those who have watched him from the beginning as it is to himself.
Mr. Major was married in 1876 to Kate Cox, daughter of William Cox and wife, the latter having been a Miss M. A. Longacre. One daughter, Daisy, came to bless their home, and she is now Mrs. Frank S. Key of Ashtabula, Ohio. Her husband is a tobacconist and confectioner. Having suffered the loss of Mrs. Major in February, 1884, Mr. Major contracted a matrimonial alliance with Hattie McCandless, and they have two sons, Walter and Glenn. Mr. and Mrs. Major are members of the United Presbyterian Church. Politically, Mr. Major inclines toward the party of Jeffersonian simplicity, and of the good old times. He has been a school director for a term of nine years. He is a member in good standing of the Junior O. U. A. M., and of the I. O. O. F.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
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