Albert M Gosser

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Albert M Gosser

ALBERT M. GOSSER, late of Leechburg, was one of the progressive citizens
who contributed much to the upbuilding of that borough, where he passed
practically all his life. The Gosser family has been settled there since 1840.
Albert M. Gosser was born Jan. 14, 1834, at Adamsburg, Westmoreland Co, Pa.,
son of William Gosser, and died March 29, 1913.

Adam Gosser, his grandfather, was born in Northampton county, Pa., whence
he emigrated with his family to Westmoreland county at an early date. Later he
removed to Erie, Pa., where he remained for a short time, removing from there
to Pittsburgh and eventually returning to Adamsburg, where he had a contract
for construction work on the Greensburg and Stoystown turnpike. He also
followed farming, and he lived to good old age, dying at Adamsburg. Adam
Gosser was twice married, and he was the father of the following children:
Jacob, a soldier of the war of 1812, who died in Missouri; William; Daniel,
who located at Baltimore; Henry, who went to Nebraska; Adam; Frederick, who
died after reaching maturity; Ann Mary; Susanna, and Catherine.

John Gosser, brother of Adam, was a resident of Westmoreland county, Pa.,
dying near Adamsburg. He left a large family.

William Gosser, one of the sons of Adam Gosser, was born Nov. 11, 1803, in
Northampton county, PA., and was a boy when his father settled at Adamsburg.
He learned the trade of blacksmith, which he first followed at Adamsburg, in
1840 removing thence to Leechburg, Armstrong Co., Pa., where he continued in
the same line of work. He retired from active labor about eight years before
his death, which occurred in 1888, when he was in his eighty-fifth year. Mr.
Gosser became a well-known and much respected citizen of Leechburg, where he
served as burgess and councilman, giving great satisfaction to his townsmen.
He was a lifelong Democrat, and in religion a member of the Lutheran Church.

On Nov. 27, 1827, Mr. Gosser was married to Susanna Kistler, who was born
July 4, 1808, and died Nov. 29, 1838, at Adamsburg. She was a member of the
Lutheran Church. Five children were born to this union: Louisa, June 28, 1830;
Daniel, Feb. 18, 1832; Albert M., Jan. 14, 1834; Adam, May 18, 1836; William,
Oct. 10, 1838 (died Dec. 8, 1838). By his second marriage, to Lucy Punt, Mr.
Gosser had the following children: Jacob, born Nov. 22, 1842; Commodore Perry,
Feb. 2, 1845; David, Sept. 4, 1847; Darius, Dec. 29, 1849 (died Dec. 12,
1852); Franklin P., July 7, 1852 (died Oct 9, 1860); Anna M. , April 18, 1855;
Sarah E., April 5, 1858; Harry, May 1, 1861; Amanda, Nov. 16, 1864;

Albert M. Gosser was only a child when the family came to Leechburg, and
there he was reared, receiving his education in the common schools. When a
young man he learned the trade of marble cutter at Greensburg with his cousin,
Capt. Daniel Kistler, and he continued to follow that line of work for about
ten years, establishing an extensive business, in Westmoreland, Armstrong and
Indiana counties. As it did not agree with his health he gave it up and
purchased a boat, the “Spartan,” which he operated on the Allegheny
river, he himself acting as captain. This was during the period of the early
oil excitement in Venango county, and supplies sold at high prices, but the
construction of the Allegheny Valley railroad destroyed the profitable river
trade. Selling his boat in 1867, Mr. Gosser returned to Leechburg, and in
company with his brother Daniel engaged in the general store business at
Freeport. He soon bought his brother’s interest and in 1868 established the
business at Leechburg. In 1871 he sold his store and removed to Allegheny
township, Westmoreland county, where in 1872 he erected a fine residence on a
high plateau overlooking the Kiskiminetas valley and Pennsylvania railroad. In
1883 he again entered mercantile business at Leechburg, that year erecting his
large three-story brick building on Market street, at Bridge alley. He carried
a large and comprehensive stock, having a fine line of dress goods, clothing,
shoes and carpets, and was considered the leading merchant of the borough
until his retirement, in 1901. He was one of the best known business men in
this district during his active career. Besides the store building mentioned
Mr. Gosser erected what is known as the “Gosser Block House,” a
three-story and basement building constructed of cement blocks which is
considered one of the most substantial structures in Leechburg. The blocks,
which he made, were the first cement blocks manufactured in this vicinity, and
he also designed the building, which was the first of this kind of
construction in the locality. The store of J. J. Long and the Nickelodeon
theater are located in the building, and the rest of the space is used for
residential purposes, it having been erected originally as an apartment house.
It contains twenty-five rooms. Mr. Gosser erected twenty-five houses in all,
at Leechburg and Gosser Hill. He long continued to make his home on the fine
place on Gosser Hill previously mentioned, in 1904 building his late residence
in Leechburg, on Main street.

Mr. Gosser was always public-spirited and active in movements affecting the
general welfare, and though he did not seek office he was a candidate for the
State Legislature in 1884, while a resident of Westmoreland county. It was
mainly through his efforts that the bridge across the Kiskiminetas river, at
Leechburg, connecting Armstrong and Westmoreland counties, was made free. Mr.
Gosser did not think it was fair that the residents of Allegheny township,
Westmoreland county, and Leechburg, Armstrong county, should pay toll on their
own bridge when they were also paying taxes to maintain the bridges elsewhere
in their counties, and after a long and persistent campaign succeeded in
having the toll removed, in June, 1890.

In 1858 Mr. Gosser married Susan Hill, daughter of Israel Hill, of
Armstrong county, who was a well-known salt manufacturer in this section. Four
sons and four daughters were born to this union: Newton H., is engaged in
business as a furniture dealer at Apollo, Armstrong county; Emma D. married
Henry Kepple; D. Homer attended commercial college at Buffalo, N. Y., was
engaged for a time as clerk in his father’s store, and died in 1909 at
Pittsburgh, Pa., aged forty-five years (he married Alberta Lindsay and they
had four children, one son living, Harold); Franklin I. graduated from the law
department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and is now engaged in
practice as an attorney at Pittsburgh; Lidie K. married Albert Manning; Lottie
E. married Lee Randel; Grace L. married Bert Stivenson; William A., who is
living at Gosser Hill, having charge of his father’s estate, married Bertha
Vogel.

Mr. and Mrs. Gosser early joined the Lutheran Church, in the work of which
he was very active, and served as superintendent of the Sunday school. In
political sentiment he was a Democrat.

Mrs. Albert M. Gosser was born Sept. 30, 1839, at Hills Mill, in Allegheny
township, Westmoreland county, Pa., of which township her parents, Israel and
Catherine (Shaffer) Hill, were lifelong residents. Her grandfather, Squire
John Hill, was a typical pioneer of the kind whose strength, energy and
resources made possible the settling of his region. He was a descendant of
Jacob Hill, the immigrant ancestor of the family in America, who came to this
country at the time of the Palestine emigration in the early years of the
eighteenth century. The history of the Hill family goes back to the time when
they were Protestant refugees in Switzerland, probably French Huguenots. Later
they had gone down the Rhine, making common cause with the French Huguenots,
and after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 they were in the
Palatinate in the Hunricher mountain district and near Coblentz, where they
were called Switzers. Tiring of the unsettled condition of the country
resulting from religious wars and persecutions, they came as stated to
America, where they are called Pennsylvania Dutch.

Jacob Hill, ancestor of Mr. Gosser, settled in Maxatawny township, Berks
county, and was one of the founders of the Moselem Stone Lutheran Church in
that county. He had three sons, Daniel, Frederick and John Jacob.

John Jacob Hill, the eldest son of Jacob, the emigrant ancestor, was born
about 1716, and on July 3, 1739, married Maria Appolonia Merking (or Merkle,
as the name is now spelled). They settled in Windsor township, Berks county,
and had a family of ten children, Anna Maria, Anna Catarine, John Christian,
John Jacob, Magdalena, John, John Peter, John Jacob, John Frederick and John
Casper. A remarkable thing is that the sons all have John prefixed to a second
name except the one born June 20, 1751, who was simply named John. A number of
these sons came West and probably some of them settled in Westmoreland county.
One of them, it is not known which, as among so many Johns one may lose his
identity in a century or more, was married to Magdalena Hower, and had three
children, John, Jacob and Hannah. The father of this family was captured by a
party of marauding Indians while returning home from a distance with a load of
fruit trees he had procured for planting, and was taken with other captives to
a point up the Allegheny river locally known as Hickory Flats. All that is
known of his fate is from the traditional account of a Mrs. McVeigh, one of
his neighbors, who was taken at the same time, and who by some means was
enabled to return to the settlements. He was made to run the gauntlet, which
he did successfully, and while he was standing by watching the fate of the
others Mrs. McVeigh fell, and was being clubbed, when he ran through a second
time, picked her up and carried her through, doubtless saving her life. She
said that by such deeds of strength and daring he had gained some favor in the
eyes of the Indians, had been allowed some freedom, and had been able to
perfect a means of escape, having secured and concealed a canoe on the river
bank. He intended to leave a certain night, and that day confided his plans to
a fellow prisoner, a German, offering him the chance of escape, too. The
German, to gain favor, revealed the plans to the Indians, who tied Hill
securely to a tree, and left him to whatever form of death the wilderness
might bring. He was tortured from time to time until he died, but at the risk
of her life Mrs. McVeigh would take him water.

Squire John Hill, grandfather of Mrs. Gosser, was born Feb. 25, 1772, and
was ten years old when his father was captured by the Indians. He died Jan. 8,
1848. Active and energetic throughout his long life, intelligent and
farseeing, and with the disposition to advance the affairs of the community as
well as the ability to make his own undertakings prosper, he was a man of
notable worth in his day. He had various interests which brought him a good
income for the time and were of value to the neighborhood, and there were few
citizens of his time and place who did as much for the general welfare. His
activities and generosity in behalf of school facilities, his services as
justice of the peace, which office he continued to hold for a number of years,
and his various business enterprises, especially “Hills Mill”,
brought him into contact with the majority of the residents of his section,
and he was as well respected as known. However, he was the victim of a
foreigner who thought he had a grievance against the Squire. This man, a
Hungarian doctor named Shultz, had been called to treat the Squire’s daughter
Leah, who was an invalid. He fell in love with the girl and wanted to marry
her, but she was indignant and alarmed at his proposal and complained to her
father and brother. The Squire ordered the Doctor to cease his visits and
attentions. This infuriated him so that he threatened to burn the barn and
kill all the family then at home. In March, 1847, he made the attempt, but
only succeeded in burning the barn and in blowing up the Squire’s office, a
small building in which two of the boys, Salem and Shiloh, slept. That night a
neighbor boy was with them. The boys were awakened by the light of the burning
barn, so they were up at the time of the explosion of the powder Shultz had
placed in the building, through a broken window, for the purpose of killing
them. The force of the explosion was such that the boys were thrown in
different directions. The one end of the building and the door were blown out,
but the boys were not seriously injured. Shultz, however, did not fare so
well. He had been about to break into the house where the other members of the
family were sleeping, but heard the boys getting up and fearing the powder
would not do its work until the boys had left the building, he had gone back
to the door, with a rifle, and a butcher knife, to meet the boys when they
would open the door; he just got there in time to receive the full force of
the door as it was blown outward by the explosion, and was so badly injured
that he was disabled for a time, being thrown back against the garden wall,
where some of the people discovered him. His face, too, was very much
lacerated by the butcher knife, which he was holding between his teeth. By
this time the inmates of the house were aroused, and it was necessary for all
to give their attention to saving the house, as the roof was already ignited
by specks from the barn. The house was saved without being very much damaged.
Salem was prevented forcibly from attacking Shultz, though when the latter
cried for water no one would give him a drink until Mrs. Hill, the Squire’s
wife, said he should have it and went to the spring herself. The next day
Shultz was taken to Kittanning, and lodged in jail. He had his trial at the
June term of court, and was found guilty of arson, and sent for life to the
penitentiary, where he died. The barn he attempted to destroy was the largest
in Allegheny township, which then comprised what is now three townships,
Gilpin, Parks and Bethel. At the time it was burned it contained one thousand
bushels of wheat, besides other grain, farm implements and horses. Such a
calamity was a heavy burden for a man already worn by many years of toil in a
frontier life, and may have hastened his death.

Squire John Hill was twice married, first to Elizabeth Walt, a native of
Westmoreland county, of German descent, who died Oct. 13, 1817, aged
thirty-eight years. She was the mother of ten children: Mary (or Polly), who
married Isaac Townsend; Elizabeth, who married Thomas Trees; John, who died
unmarried; Jacob, who married Hannah Ulan, and died in Parks township, this
county; Levi, who married Sophia Minion; Eli, born in 1807, who died in
October, 1843, in Leechburg (he married Susan Ashbuagh, who died in March,
1878, aged abut sixty-two years, and they had four children, John, Eveline,
Mrs. Margaret Barr and Mrs. Priscilla Lytle); Daniel, who married Eliza Kuhns,
and died in Leechburg; Hiram, born Dec. 17, 1812, who died in Gilpin township
Jan. 16, 1891 (he married Margaret Shaffer and had, Elizabeth, Jefferson,
Elisha, Francis and D. Marion); Israel, who died in Gilpin township; and
Deborah, who died young. For his second wife the father married Susan Ammon,
who lived to be over ninety-eight years old. The following children were born
to this union; Esther, who married Rev. George Ehrenfeld, a Lutheran minister;
Leah, who died unmarried; Noe, widow of James Weaver, residing in Gilpin
township; John; Ammon, who married Catherine Shuster, and died in Freeport,
Pa.; Shiloh, who was married twice, first to Helen Coulter and second to Emily
Weaver, and is the father of John A., James R., Charles S., Fred E., Hattie
and Laura; Philip, who died when fifteen years old; Seni, who died young; and
Salem, who married Hetti Kuhns. (It would appear there was also a daughter
Sarah, Mrs. Jonathan Waltz.) The brothers Eli, Levi and Jacob engaged in the
manufacture of salt, drilling the third well in this section for the purpose.
They drilled altogether about eight wells, becoming extensive manufacturers in
their line. Eli, Levi, Daniel and Hiram also engaged in the mercantile
business at Leechburg, being extensively interested in that line for about
four years.

Israel Hill, son of Squire John Hill, was the father of Mrs. Gosser. He was
born June 16, 1820, on the old Hill homestead in Gilpin township, and died
there Jan. 28, 1878. He was a salt manufacturer and later a farmer. He married
Catherine Shaffer, who was born Jan. 22, 1821, and died March 26, 1879, on the
old home farm. Mr. and Mrs. Hill were members of the Hebron Lutheran Church.
They had a family of seven children, two sons and five daughters, viz.:
Elizabeth married John A. Patterson and both are deceased. Fannie married
Andrew Sobers and both are deceased. Susan is the widow of Albert M. Gosser.
Mahala married Henry Isensee and is living at Vandergrift. Emily married
Milton Anderson and is deceased. B. Franklin died at Vandergrift, Pa., March
15, 1913. Israel died in infancy.

Source: Pages 5669-572, Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and
Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed December 1998 by Connie Mateer for the Armstrong County Beers
Project
Contributed for use by the Armstrong County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/armstrong/)

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