JOHN SAMUEL ARTMAN, merchant and manufacturer of Ford City, Armstrong county, is one of the all around active citizens of his section, interested in business and public life, well known in social circles and thoroughly respected in all the relations of life. He was born Oct. 3, 1856, in Westmoreland county, Pa., son of Michael and Rachel (Hill) Artman, of that county, the Artman family being of German stock, he Hills of Scotch-Irish extraction.Michael Artman grew up in Westmoreland county and attended the common schools. He learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed throughout his active years, and he and his wife are still living in Westmoreland county (1912), he at the age of eighty-four years, she aged eighty-two. They are members of the Presbyterian Church. They had a family of six children, namely: John Samuel; Miller, a blacksmith and wagonmaker by trade, who was a merchant and postmaster at Milligantown, Westmoreland county; Emma, who married M. Portner, M. D., of Bevan, Pa.; Martha, who married David Guthrie, a carpenter, of New Kensington, Pa.; James; and G. H.
John Samuel Artman was given a common school education. At the age of fifteen years he commenced to learn to make grain cradles, with Matthew Miller, of Westmoreland county, for whom he worked three years without wages, and another year for which he was paid. He was twenty when he started out on his own account, in 1876 coming to Armstrong county and settling in Manor township, where Ford City now stands. For the next eighteen years he was in the employ of T. Montgomery, making cradles, and Mr. Montgomery retiring at the end of that period Mr. Artman continued the business at the old stand for a number of years. In 1907 he located at his present place in Ford City, and he is still engaged in the manufacture of grain cradles, selling his product entirely to the wholesale trade. However, this one interest has by no means claimed all his attention. In 1909, in company with H. H. Heilman, he stared a shoe store in Ford City under the name of Artman and Heilman, and their establishment is not only the leading one in the borough but in all this section. They have a fine stock and a thoroughly up-to-date store, conducted along the most modern lines, and the business is one of the most prosperous in this region. For several years Mr. Artman was interested in the gas business, drilling, leasing and selling, and met with success in that line as he has in all his ventures. He also owns a valuable tract of land, 225 acres of the old William Heilman homestead in Bethel township, this county, and is kept busy with the management of his numerous concerns, though he has found time to do his share in the work of local government. He has held the offices of school director, tax collector, overseer of the poor and constable, filling their duties with his customary ability and fidelity, and on political questions is identified with the Democratic party. Fraternally he holds membership in the Elks at Kittanning, and the Eagles and Knights of Pythias at Ford City.
In the fall of 1878 Mr. Artman married Margaret Heilman, of Kittanning township, who was born in that township, daughter of William Heilman, and they have had two children: Edna B. received her education at Kittanning, Pa., and Canton, Ohio, and is now the wife of Walter Bowser, of Ford City (they have two children, Margaret and Dick); Earl D. has always worked with his father. Mrs. Artman is a member of the Lutheran Church.
Source: Pages 631, Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed October 2001 by Lynn Beatty for the Armstrong County Beers Project
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