Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 289] a wealthy and
representative farmer of Taylor township,
engaged in carrying on his chosen occupation at
East Moravia, was born at Lawrence Junction,
July 31, 1826. His parents were Michael and
Elizabeth (Cameron) Pitzer; the latter was born
in Pittsburg, a daughter of Allan and Elizabeth
(Corman) Cameron; Allan Cameron was a
native of Scotland, but immigrated to the colonies
prior to the Revolutionary War, and when
injustice and oppression culminated in war, he
espoused the cause of the patriots and fought
nobly throughout the struggle. Our subject's
father was a native of Virginia, where he was
born in 1802; his death took place in Dickinson
County, Tenn., in 1881. He was very handy and
expert with all manner of tools, and was the
master of three different trades-coopering,
shoemaking, and carpentering. He was frugal
and industrious in his habits, and accumulated
considerable property; with the increase in his
fortune, he conceived the idea of making his
home in a new country where land was plentier
than where he had resided, and where be could
gather all his children and their families about
him. So in 1868, he removed to Dickinson
County, Tenn., where he purchased 530 acres of
land near Charlotte; many of his children went
with him, but some of them, among whom was
our subject, returned to Pennsylvania after his
death. Michael Pitzer was a son of Michael Pitzer,
Sr., a native of Germany, who followed
farming in the State of Virginia after coming to
America, and died about 1835 or 1840, aged
eighty-two years.
The subject of this biography was reared in Lawrence County, and was a pupil in the subscription schools until the age of sixteen, when be began boating on the canal as tow-boy, and followed this life on the canal for five years. He then began farming, and also ran a threshing machine for a period of twenty-one years. His first landed possession was a ten-acre tract on the old Pittsburg road near Pumpkinton, where he resided ten years, and then moved to a sixty-acre farm on Snake Run farther south in Shenango township, which he occupied ten years, engaged in farming and in operating his threshing machine, in the meantime disposing of his original ten-acre tract. In 1869, he sold his farm, and bought 100 acres near Moravia, where he still resides as one of the prominent and leading agriculturists of his section.
Mr. Pitzer was joined in the bonds of matrimony in Shenango township, Dec. 26, 1849, to Margaret Reed, a daughter of William and Anna Cannon Reed. Mrs. Pitzer's mother who was born in Mahoningtown, Feb. 10, 1805, still survives, and in her ninety-third year is clear and vigorous in mind, and reasonably strong and active in body for one of her age; she makes her home with her granddaughter, Mrs. J. W. Miller, in New Castle. She was a daughter of James and Betsey (Hendrickson) Cannon. James Cannon, a farmer by occupation, and son of James Cannon, Sr., was born at Shirley's Landing, Pa., and died in Shenango township, near Center Church, at the age of sixty-six. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Cornelius Hendrickson, who was the first physician to practice in Lawrence County, coming to this county in 1797, when the Indians were plentiful, with two other families, who were among the first people to settle in what was then almost a trackless wilderness. Betsey, his daughter, was severely frightened by one of the red savages when driving home the cows one evening, and it was deemed so very unsafe after that, that she was never sent again, the work being then performed by one of the men of the household. The Doctor served through the Revolutionary War. He retained his vigor to an extreme old age, and when ninety-five years of age rode six miles on horse-back to set a broken leg. William Reed, the father of Mrs. Pitzer, was born near Zanesville, Ohio, in the month of June, 1803, and learned the wheelwright's trade at Zelienople, Pa. He came to New Castle and bought a farm in 1829, where he worked at his trade and followed agricultural pursuits until his death at the age of forty. He was a son of John and Margaret (Lutton) Reed; the latter was a daughter of Ralph Lutton, who married a Miss Martin, and she lived to be ninety-two years old. John Reed, whose father, Michael Reed, died in Ireland, was born in the Emerald Isle, and immigrated to America, settling first in Ohio, and coming to Lawrence County in 1806, where he purchased a farm in the southern part of Shenango township on Snake Run, where he died at the age of forty.
Seven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Pitzer, as follows: Della C., now deceased, who married Edward Frisbee of Shenango township, and bore him six children—Mary, Daisy B., Effie, Roy, Edward, and Harriet; Jennie H., who married Milton Crider of Freedom, Pa., and has seven children—Eva, the wife of Albert Mills, and the mother of one child, William DeForest—William H., B. Anna, Amanda, Bessie, Milton A., and Ira; William C., who lives on his farm in Big Beaver township, surrounded with a family of seven children—Anna M., Elizabeth, Ellen, Mary, James, Josie B., and Jennie; David A., living in Big Beaver township, was the second postmaster at East Moravia, holding office ten years from the establishment of the office in 1881—he has five children, Mary M., Lea, Earl, Audley, and Gertrude; Anna M., who married James A. Lindsay of Lowellville, Ohio, and has borne him five children—Robert Audley, Anna M., James A., Edith, and Jennie B.; Bessie, who was assistant postmaster many years with her brother, and is now the wife of Nicholas J. Hall of McKeesport, Pa., and the mother of one child, John Nicholas; and George Francis, who lives at Freedom, Pa., and has one child, Grace. Mrs. Pitzer, an excellent lady of wide acquaintance and deservedly popular among her friends, is an active member of the United Presbyterian Church. Mr. Pitzer is a Republican in his politics, and has served as supervisor many years, such is the high esteem for integrity and good judgment in which he is held. He has been for twenty years a member of Welcome Lodge, No. 65, A. O. U. W., of Chewton, this county, and was formerly affiliated with the I. O. O. F. Our subject and his wife are a highly esteemed and respected couple, who labor in all ways to advance the interests of the community, and to show forth in their daily lives the precepts of that noble religion taught in the life of the Redeemer, and the citizens of Taylor township hold them in the highest repute for their consistent goodness and nobility of character. In 1885 he engaged in the mercantile business, in which he was very successful, remaining in trade until 1890. He then sold out at good advantage and returned to his farm. He is now enjoying the fruits of a well-spent life. We are indeed pleased to be able to present such an excellent likeness of Mr. Pitzer, as adorns a preceding page, and we feel sure that it will be viewed with interest.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
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Updated: 18 May 2001