Orion Siggins

ORION SIGGINS, dealer in real estate and lumber, West Hickory, was born in what is now Harmony township, Forest Co., Penn., June 3, 1848, and is a son of George S. and Rachel (Dawson) Siggins. His paternal grandfather was George Siggins, whose wife was Jane Young, a descendant of the great British Admiral Hood. George Siggins, last mentioned, was a son of John and Sarah Siggins, natives of the County Sligo, Ireland and was born in the parish of Drumcliff, in that county, in 1778. The family emigrated to America in 1793, and settled in Centre county, Penn., where John Siggins died in 1801; his wife, Sarah, died in Youngsville, Warren Co., Penn., in 1835, at the age of eighty five years. George Siggins, from information derived from his only surviving son, James Y. Siggins, of Pleasantville, Penn., came from Centre county to Stewart's Run, near where John A. Dawson now resides, in Harmony township, Forest county, about 1801 or 1802, and cleared quite a tract of land. Some years later, on account of a heavy frost, which ruined his crops, he removed to what is now Harmony township, below Fagundus, built a saw-mill and manufactured and shipped lumber down the Allegheny river to Pittsburgh. The war of 1812 breaking out soon after his mill began running, he was drafted, and stationed at Erie, being there at the time of Perry's victory. After the war he sold his mill to Isaac Ball, and settled below Tidioute, soon after migrating to Hickory Town (now West Hickory), a once famous Indian reservation, where he purchased of a squatter by the name of John Thompson, 1,000 acres, on which the family descendants now reside. He was a life-long member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and died January 17, 1865, aged eighty-seven years. His children were John, William, Mary, Nathaniel H., George S., Isaac C., James Y., Jane (Mrs. Cyrus Richardson) and Rebecca. The maternal grandparents of Orion Siggins were Thomas and Hannah (Connelly) Dawson, pioneers of Stewart's Run, Venango Co., Penn. George Simpson Siggins, father of the subject of this sketch, always followed farming as an occupation, and cleared and improved the homestead farm where Orion now resides, and where he died August 20, 1875, aged sixty-six years. His children were Harriet E. (Mrs. Wesley C. Howe), Hannah (Mrs. James Gilfillan), Rachel R. (Mrs. John Gilfillan), Orion, Elizabeth (Mrs. Clinton Smith), Francis B., Jane I. , Julia E. (Mrs. Frank Wheeler) and Justina. Orion Siggins was reared on the old homestead, where he has always resided, following farming up to 1877 since which time he has been in the real estate business, also lumbering quite extensively. He married, November 26, 1884, Miss Alice M., daughter of Joseph and Rachel (McGrew) Hall, of Steubenville, Ohio and to this union was born, October 17, 1889, one child, a daughter. Mr. Siggins is one of the prominent and leading citizens of Forest county, full of vim and enterprise, and always ready and willing to give liberally of his means for the welfare of the community in which he lives. He donated the grounds for the fine tannery and for numerous other purposes at West Hickory; gave large possessions to the Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad; also assisted in the construction of other public benefits, and by this liberal policy founded a now flourishing town.

Source: Page(s) 949-950, Chapter 15 Biographical Sketches - Tionesta Township and Borough of Tionesta
Hickory and Harmony Townships
History of Counties of McKean, Elk and Forest, Pennsylvania.
Chicago, J.H. Beers & Co., 1890.
Transcribed December 2005 by Nathan Zipfel for the Forest County Genealogy Project
Published 2005 by the Forest County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project

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