BIOGRAPHY: Anselum WEAKLAND, 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. 387-8
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Anselum WEAKLAND
ANSELUM WEAKLAND, one of the substantial citizens of Elder township, and a
member of an old and distinguished family that came over with Lord Baltimore, is
a son of Samuel and Margaret (McAteer) Weakland, and was born in Carroll
township, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, March 21, 1833. His boyhood days were
passed on his father's farm, and he received his education in the early common
schools which succeeded the old subscription schools that had come down from
pioneer days. Leaving school, he engaged in farming, which he has followed ever
since. He has always resided on a farm, and in 1859 purchased his present farm
of one hundred and thirty acres of land, which is well improved, highly
productive and underlaid with coal. Mr. Weakland is a general farmer, who has
made his farm one of the best in the township where good farms are numerous. He
is a man of standing and influence in his community, and possesses a well-
balanced mind, good judgment and a considerable amount of firmness. He is a
member of the Catholic church, in which he has worshiped from boyhood. Mr.
Weakland in his political, views has always been a democrat, and a strong
advocate of Jeffersonian principles. He has served as constable and as school-
director of his township, and held various other local offices, but has neither
sought nor desired such honors. He was elected as a director of the poor, and in
1894 as a jury commissioner, both of which county offices he filled creditably.
On May 8, 1859, Mr. Weakland married Matilda Luther, a daughter of John
Luther, and a sister of ex-Sheriff Luther. To their union have been born ten
children: Aaron, a livery proprietor at Patton; Walter, a merchant of Patton;
Samuel, who is a partner in business with his brother Aaron; Amanda, wife of
Michael el Ryan, of Patton; Emma, Malvina, Bennett, Ellen and Edward, who are
still at home with their parents, and Matilda, now deceased.
The Weakland family, is of distinguished English origin, and the founders
of the American branch came over with the colony sent to Maryland by Cecil
Calvert, second Lord Baltimore and settled near the site of the city of
Baltimore. There is a family tradition that three Weakland brothers came with
the first Maryland colony, and that one of them, like Rolfe in Virginia, married
an Indian princess, and was the progenitor of the Pennsylvania Weakland family
founded by John Weakland, Sr., who came to Loretto before the settlement of
Father Gallitzin in Cambria county. John Weakland, Sr., was a Catholic and his
dust reposes at Loretto. His three sons, Jephaniah, John and William, came with
him; the two elder being married. John Weakland, in 1816, purchased a seven-
hundred-acre tract of land in what is now Elder township, and which was patented
under the name of "Head's Sleeping Place." On this land he settled and reared
his family. He was a member of the Catholic church, and married Catherine
Jackson, of Hagerstown, Maryland, by whom he had nine children -- seven sons and
two daughters: Mary, wife of Samuel McDermot; James, who owns farms in
Clearfield. and Carroll townships; William, who was a farmer and stockdealer and
owned the home farm; John, Peter and George, who followed farming in Carroll
township, where they owned good farms; Amelia, who became deaf and dumb from
sickness; Samuel; and Michael, who was a farm-owner in Carroll township.
Samuel Weakland was born at Loretto, in 1805, and died on his farm in
September, 1887, aged eighty-two years. One biographer said of him that, "he was
one of the oldest and most respected citizens of the northern part of the
county." He was a Catholic, and resided in the Weakland settlement, near St.
Joseph's church, in Carroll township. He married Margaret McAteer, whose people
came from Ireland and settled near Loretto. Mr. and Mrs. Weakland reared a
family of four children: Anselum, whose name appears at the head of this sketch;
Catherine, wife of James Kirkpatrick, of Carroll township; Levi, a lumber-dealer
of Cumberland, Maryland, and John, who is engaged in farming on the home farm in
Carroll township.