HEADER
Benjamin S Hawk
BENJAMIN S. HAWK, contractor, has much good work to his credit in Armstrong
county, principally at Ford City and Kittanning. He was born in Washington
township, this county, Feb. 9, 1871, and is a descendant of one of the
county’s pioneers, his great-grandfather, George Hawk, having come to this
region from Somerset county, Pa., before his marriage. He took part in the
Indian troubles of the period. Settling four miles from Freeport, on Buffalo
creek, he continued to reside there until his death at the age of eighty
years. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church and a Democrat in political
sentiment. His wife, whose maiden name was Colwell, was a resident of
Freeport, of English descent, while he was of German extraction. They had a
family of nine children, as follows: John, who was a shoemaker and resided on
Buffalo creek, had two children, who are now deceased; Jacob, who was the
father of five children, was keeper of the canal lock between Leechburg and
Apollo until the canal was abandoned; David is mentioned below; Simon, who
married Martha Iseman, resided three miles from Slate Lick (their children are
Alfred, of Brookville, Ephraim, John, George, Mary and Priscilla); Betsy is
the wife of Daniel Young and resides in Indiana county (no children); Susan is
the wife of George Best, of Indiana county, and they have six children; Kate,
Mrs. David Young resides in Indiana county, Pa. (her children are Joe and
Melinda, wife of Jesse Weaver); Delilah died unmarried; Julia is unmarried.David Hawk, son of George, lived in Washington township, Armstrong county,
after his marriage settling on a tract of sixty-five acres–the finest pine
timber land in the county. He died very suddenly at the age of fifty-five
years of heart trouble while attending a shooting match in Indiana county on
Christmas day, and was buried in the Cumberland cemetery. He was a member of
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Mr. Hawk married Esther Johns, who was
reared in Washington township, daughter of Martin and Mary (Crissman) Johns,
natives of that township; her father owned five hundred acres of land there.
She survived Mr. Hawk, and married for her second husband Martin John, by whom
she had no children. Her death, which occurred when she was sixty-eight years
old, was caused by a vicious cow, which horned her through the heart, while
she was fixing the chain to the manger. By her marriage to Mr. Hawk she had a
family of fourteen children, namely: Jacob, who resides at Curwensville, Pa.,
married Amanda Nicodemus, and they have had eight children; William, who
resides on a 400-acre farm forty miles from Richmond, Va., on the James River,
has a family of ten children, eight of whom were born in Armstrong county;
John is mentioned below; Aaron is married and resides in Indiana county (he
has six children); Elizabeth is the wife of Chambers King, an old soldier, and
the oldest gunsmith in Armstrong county, and has one son and two daughters;
Phoebe Jane, wife of Isaiah Davis, resides in Clearfield county (no children);
Ann, wife of Clark Tigger, resides in Indiana county, and has five children;
Emanuel, who resides at Plum Creek, Indiana Co., Pa., married Annie Mitchel,
deceased, by whom he had one son, and after her death married (second) Frances
Blue, by whom he had two sons (one served on the battleship “Texas”
and cruised around the world); Kate, wife of Thomas Wolf, resides in Indiana
county, and has three sons and two daughters; Simon, who resides in Medford,
Oregon, where he has a timber tract of 160 acres, married Melinda McGregor,
and has seven children; David, of Indiana county, who owns a planing mill,
chopping mill and shingle mill, married Susie Spencer, who became the mother
of three sons; Adam, who married Anna Lydic, resides at Punxsutawney, Pa., and
is engaged as patternmaker (they have eight children); Della, wife of Jake
Hainey, has eleven children; Susan died when a small child, as the result of
eating poison weeds.John Hawk, born Aug. 6, 1848, in Indiana county, was only nine years old
when brought to Armstrong county, where he was reared and educated. After his
marriage, which occurred in 1868, he moved to Indiana county again, but
remained there only one year, returning to Armstrong county, where he had his
home for the next two years. At the end of that time he moved to St.
Petersburg, Clarion Co., Pa, where his son, Dr. M. C. Hawk, was born, and from
there to Buena Vista, Butler county, where he remained a year. Coming back to
Armstrong county, he settled in Washington township, where he remained for
fifteen years. He now lives in North Buffalo township, this county, one mile
from Kittanning. He has followed the carpenter’s trade all his life, and has
done well in that line. He is a prominent member of the First Baptist Church
of Kittanning, of which he has been a deacon for seventeen years, is a member
of Lodge No. 515, I. O. O. F., at Cowansville, Armstrong county, and
politically gives his allegiance to the Washington party.In 1868 Mr. Hawk married Ann Eliza Bowser, daughter of B. S. and Elizabeth
(Yerty) Bowser, and they have become the parents of eighteen children, viz:
The eldest two daughters died in infancy; Benjamin S. is mentioned below; M.
C.., born in Washington township, attended Reidsburg high school and graduated
in medicine from the West Penn Medical college, Pittsburgh, started to
practice at Unity, Pa., as surgeon for Rogers, Farland & Hagerman,
contractors, from there moved to Blue Island and then to Chicago, where he is
located at No. 7857 South Halsted street (he married Therese Schmitt, after
her death marrying Pearl Strayer, of Chicago; he has no children; he is a
member of the Baptist Church); Jennie Rodeska, wife of Jerry Gumbert, resides
in Verona, Pa., and has five children; Hattie May is the wife of Hays
McDaniel, and they have two sons and two daughters (they reside at Applewold,
Kittanning); William, a druggist, of No. 1601 Garfield Boulevard, Chicago,
married Edith Vaughn, of Iowa (they have no children); Flossie is the wife of
Harvey Waugaman, of Grove city, and they have seven children; John Herbert,
who resides at Weston, W. Va., married Dolly Steinbeck, and they have one son
and one daughter; Elizabeth Lucile, wife of Homer Ruff, resides at Lima, Ohio
(they have no children); Rachel is the wife of Charles Simpson, of Verona,
Pa., and has two children; Grace is the wife of Guy Albright, of Chicago,
Ill., and has two children; Mervin Elmer, who is an osteopath, married Mabel
Martin, and resides at Augusta, Maine (they have one child); Mildred Florence
is the wife of Clifton Richards, of Manorville, Pa; Anna Lee is the wife of
David H. Boggs, of Ford City, Pa.; Zeller died when seven months old; Garnet
died when five months old; Hyatt Lafayette is at home.Benjamin S. Hawk, son of John, received his education in Washington
township. After his school days he went to Kittanning, where he learned the
trade of carpenter, and has been successfully engaged in contracting and in
that line for a number of years. He has helped to build the greater part of
Ford City, among his many responsible contracts being two churches, and he
acted as foreman for the contractor who built the Episcopal and Presbyterian
Churches in Kittanning. His work has been confined to Armstrong county, and
has been of such substantial quality as to establish him in the confidence of
all who have had dealings with him. He has enough work to keep an average of
ten men busy.On Sept. 6, 1889, Mr. Hawk married Catherine Caroline Craig, daughter of
Alex and Elizabeth (Metzgar) Craig, of Madison township, this county. They
have had six children: Evelyn Marie, J. A. Craig, Benjamin Stevens, Jr.,
Richard Carl (deceased), Mortimer Sherman, and Betty Allison (deceased). The
family reside one mile from Kittanning, in North Buffalo township. Mr. Hawk is
a member of the First Baptist Church in Kittanning, and socially he belongs to
the Woodmen of the World.Source: Pages 453-454 Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and
Present, J. H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed September 1998 by James R. Hindman for the Armstrong County Beers
Project
Contributed for use by the Armstrong County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/armstrong/)Armstrong County Genealogy Project Notice:
These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format, for any presentation, without prior written permission.Return to the Beers Project
Â
Return to the
Armstrong County Genealogy ProjectÂ
Return to the
Armstrong County Genealogy Project
Return to the
Armstrong County Genealogy Project
(c) Armstrong County
Genealogy Project
About Author
