Leonard Egly
LEONARD EGLY carries on general farming in Kittanning township, Armstrong county, and also has a coal bank on his farm. He has held local offices, and is very well known in his section, where he has resided for years.
Mr. Egly was born Oct. 7, 1839, in Allegheny county, Pa., son of John N. and Catherine Elizabeth (Horn) Egly. The parents were natives of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany. They arrived in America in 1839, just before their marriage, the voyage taking sixty-two days. Landing in New York City, they married and came west to Allegheny county, Pa., where they lived for the next twenty years, in 1859 moving to Armstrong county, Pa. Here they settled in Kittanning township, near the old Red Mill, Mr. Egly acquiring the ownership of 100 acres of land, which at the time had only a small house upon it. He cleared much of the property and improved it greatly during the forty years and more of his residence thereon, his death occurring in 1902, when he was eighty-four years of age. His wife had died in 1898, at the age of seventy-eight. They were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and were substantial and well-known residents of the locality in which they settled. They had a family of ten children: Leonard, mentioned below; Elizabeth, deceased; Susan, living in Armstrong county; John N.; William, living in Higbee, Missouri; Michael, a blacksmith in Kittanning township; Catherine, married to John Weise, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Henry, living in Apollo, Pa.; Philip, deceased; and Benjamin, a blacksmith, living at Canton, Ohio.
Leonard Egly was given a common school education, and lived at home up to the time of his marriage. He was only a boy of eleven years when he began to work in the mines, and after his marriage he located at McKeesport, Pa., where he was employed in the mines for six years. At the end of that time he came to his present location in Kittanning township, Armstrong county, buying the tract of forty-two acres which he has since cultivated. He has made all of the improvements on the place, which is now in excellent shape, and in addition to carrying on general farming operates the coal bank on this property. He has been quite active in local affairs, holding the offices of assessor and supervisor of Kittanning township for several terms, and is identified with the Democratic party on political questions. He is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
On June 13, 1863, Mr. Egly married Elizabeth Grantz, who was born in April, 1844, in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, daughter of John and Barbara (Bohim) Grantz, natives of Germany who came to America in 1862 and settled at McKeesport, Pa., where he worked at his trade, tailoring, the rest of his life. Mr. Grantz was born in 1816 and died at the age of seventy-five; his wife, born in 1813, died at the age of sixty-four. They were members of the Lutheran Church. Their children were: William, who is a miner, of McKeesport, Pa.; Elizabeth, Mrs. Egly; Peter, who is deceased; Margaret, living in McKeesport, Pa.; and Catherine, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Egly: Catherine is deceased; William, who is a blacksmith in Valley township, this county, married May McClure, and they have four children, Esther, Ralph, Marie, and Russell; John, who is a stone and marble cutter, at Apollo, Pa., is married and has two children, Lottie and Barkley; Margaret is the wife of Benjamin Stivison, of Kittanning, and has a family of nine children, Harry, Annie, Mary, Bertha, Arthur, Herbert, Blanche, Benjamin and Martha; Annie Elizabeth married Joseph Hobough, of Manor township, this county, and has four children, Mamie, Edna, Aubry and Hazel; George, a farmer of Kittanning township, is unmarried.
Source: Page 809, Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed October 1998 by James R Hindman for the Armstrong County Beers Project
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