Isaac Fennell
ISAAC FENNELL, who has been engaged in farming in Bethel township for many years, is a veteran of the Civil war, and he has been as useful and honorable a citizen of his home communtiy as he was of his country in the days of that crisis. He was born Aug. 21, 1840, in Westmoreland county, Pa., son of Abraham and Katherine (Nunnemacher) Fennell.
Abraham Fennell was born on Loyalhanna creek, near New Salem, Westmoreland county, and died about 1843. His wife died in 1865, aged about seventy-five years. They were members of the Lutheran Church. They had a family of eleven children, five sons and six daughters: Jacob, a farmer of Kittanning township; Margaret, who married David Shiery; Daniel, a farmer of Washington township; Susan, wife of Jacob Nunnemacher; Abraham, a farmer of West Franklin township (he was a soldier in the Civil war); Elizabeth, who married William Schaeffer; George, a farmer and coal miner in Manor township, who married Mary Keeler; Catherine, who married George Iseman and lived in Manor township (both are deceased); Isaac, and two died in infancy. George and Isaac are the only survivors.
Isaac Fennell passed his early youth in North Buffalo township, and was educated in public school there. In February, 1864, he enlisted for service in the Union army, joining Company I, 78th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and served over eighteen months, receiving his honorable discharge in September, 1865. He took part in all of the great battles of 1864 in which his command was engaged, being present at Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Buzzard's Roost, Cumberland Gap, Resaca, Dallas, New Hope Church Pulaski, Nashville, and other engagements. After the war he worked at coal mines and stone quarries until about 1888, when he engaged in farming in Bethel township, Armstrong county, settling at his present home one mile above Kelly Station.
On May 31, 1865, Mr. Fennell married Mary McElfresh, of Bethel township, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Keibler) McElfresh, of that township, and she died in 1867. She was a member of the Methodist Church. Elle, the first child of this union, born April 4, 1866, married Peter Miller and has six children: Ida, born March 10, 1867, married William Miller, of Bethel township, brother of her sister's husband, and has had three children, two of whom survive, Carl, a school teacher, and Verna, who is attending school at Ford City. In December, 1870, Mr. Fennell married (second) Nancy Keibler, who like himself was born in Westmoreland county, daughter of Jacob and Nancy (Piper) Keibler, and they have had three children, namely: Laura B., married Lyman Bowser, a farmer of Manor township, Armstrong county, and they have six children: John N., a coal miner, now (1912) thirty-nine years old, is unmarried; Charles W., a blacksmith and machinist for the coal company, married Eva Dickey, who died July 4, 1910, leaving five children, of whom the eldest daughter, Ora, is married to Arthur Klingensmith, the others being Austin, Leona, Florence and Smith. Mr. Fennell, the father, is a member of the Baptist Church.
Source: Page 728 Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed October 1998 by Joyce Sherry for the Armstrong County Beers Project
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