STEWART D. RITTER

STEWART D. RITTER, a leading businessman and prominent citizen of Freemansburg, is a dealer in coal, wood, etc; and is also serving as Justice of the Peace, having been elected to that office in 1893, for a term of five years. Our subject is a native of Pennsylvania, having been born June 20, 1859, in Northampton County. He is a son Benjamin F. Ritter and his wife, natives of Bethlehem Township, the latter having been in maidenhood Miss Mary A. Frankenfield.

Benjamin F. Ritter was a coal and wood dealer in Freemansburg for over forty years. He started in that business on a small scale, when a young man, and by patient perseverance and wise judgment his trade increased with the population, and at the time of his death, which occurred December 31, 1887, he was proprietor of the largest coal and wood yard in the town. He also served as Justice of the Peace for ten years. He was a man of good education, a member of the Lutheran Church, and a Democrat in politics. The Ritter family was early settlers of Bethlehem Township. The great-great-grandfather emigrated to America, coming directly to Pennsylvania, and Northampton County has been the home of his descendants up to the present day. Capt. Daniel Ritter, the grandfather of our subject, was an old-time honored resident of Bethlehem Township. He was brave officer of the War of 1812, and passed peacefully away when eighty years of age.

Stewart D. Ritter, of this sketch, was reared to manhood in Freemansburg, attending the public schools of that place in his youth, and later spending several years at Schwartz's Academy of Bethlehem, where he received a thorough business education. After graduating, Mr. Ritter taught several terms of school near the home of his childhood, where he was well known and respected. He subsequently drifted into the coal and wood business, of which he assumed charge at his father's death, and has been sole proprietor since 1887. Being energetic, ambitious and enterprising, he has made a financial success of the business, and has many warm friends in the community.

Our subject was united in marriage, November 13, 1884, to Miss Alice T. Snyder, daughter of Adam Snyder, of Berlinsville, Pa. As a result of this union Mr. and Mrs. Ritter have become the happy parents of one child, Chauncey S., October 31, 1893. Mr. Ritter is a member of Feedyuscong Tribe No. 117, I. O. R. M., and also of the Golden Eagle, Star Castle No. 108. Politically he is a stanch Democrat, and an ardent supporter of the principles of that party. He, with his highly esteemed wife, is an active member of the Lutheran Church, and gives liberally to the cause of Christianity. Mr. Ritter's maternal grandmother resides at Elizabeth, N.J., in her ninety-second year, and is hale and hearty.