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Olynsca C. Rairigh
OLYNSCA C. RAIRIGH, of Kittanning, is the only architect residing at
that place, and has many substantial pieces of work to his credit in the
borough and vicinity. He is a native of Plumville, Indiana Co., Pa., born May
11, 1872, son of William K. Rairigh, who is now a resident of Kittanning. His
paternal grandfather was born in 1796 in Conococheague, Maryland, and lived to
the age of eighty-three years, dying in 1879. His wife was born at Blue Knob,
Bedford Co., Pa., in 1809, and lived to the age of seventy-eight, dying in
1887.William K. Rairigh was born in the year 1848 in Cowanshannock, near the old
Hoosic Mill, near the line of Indiana county, and married Mary M. Hoak, who
was born in a humble home near Kittanning, not far from the present typewriter
works, in 1853. When she was only a few months old her mother died of typhoid
fever, when but twenty-five years old; her father, who was a veteran of the
Civil war, died in 1898, at the age of sixty-nine years.O. C. Rairigh received his early schooling at this native place and at St.
Petersburg, Clarion county, later attending the public school at Kittanning
(whither his parents had moved), from which he was graduated in 1881. He then
learned the trade of carpenter, at which he worked in Pittsburgh and
Kittanning, with a prominent contractor, meantime also taking a course in
architecture at the Scranton Correspondence School. He has been settled at
Kittanning since 1894, and has been busily engaged as a carpenter, contractor
and architect throughout the period of his residence here. His first work in
architecture was drawing the plans for St. Mary’s parochial school building,
in Kittanning, besides which he has made the plans for the First Baptist
church at Ford City, and some fine country residences and good dwellings at
Ford City, Templeton, Elderton, Kittanning and the surrounding towns. He has
also been employed by the American Planing Mill Company, of Kittanning, doing
all their architectural drawing and high class carpenter work for the last
seven years. He has done work of special merit in hand carving and the
building of furniture for several churches. He is a member of the local
carpenter’s union.Mr. Rairigh has been interested in the progress of the borough since taking
up his residence here, and he was one of the charter members of the Wickboro
Cooperative Water Company , of which he is treasurer. Socially he is an Odd
Fellow and member of the K.O.T.M., and he has been through the chairs in the
local lodge of the former organization, Aerial No. 688. He was formerly a
member of the encampment, I.O.O.F. Mr. Rairigh is a prominent member of the
First Baptist Church of Kittanning, and is serving as treasurer of both the
church and Sunday school. Politically he is a Washington party man.In 1893 Mr. Rairigh married Lydia M. White, a native of the East End,
Pittsburgh, whose parents were also born in that city, her mother in 1848; her
father served in the Civil war and died in 1883, at the age of forty-one
years, from the effects of a wound received while in the army. Coming to
Kittanning, Mr. Rairigh first erected a home on Queen street. Selling that
property, he built his present fine home at No. 620 Hawthorne avenue, Wickboro,
which was one of the first residences to be put up on that street. Mr. and
Mrs. Rairigh have had four children: Robert Lloyd, Carra Margaret, and two who
died in infancy, one son and one daughter.Source: Pages 543-544, Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and
Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed September 2001 by Nancy Cain Knepper 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:
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