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Uriah Oury Heilman, M.D.
URIAH OURY HEILMAN, M. D., who has practiced medicine at Leechburg for over
a quarter of a century, is an honorable representative of a family which has
been settled in Armstrong county for almost one hundred and twenty years. He
was born Sept. 23, 1853, on the old homestead farm of his father, Solomon
Heilman, and near the old farm of his grandfather, Daniel Heilman.The Heilmans are of German origin, and the name dates from 1305, when a
German Palatine, “Veit the Heilman,” was knighted by the Emporer
(sic) Albright and given a nobility diploma, his descendants calling
themselves Heilman. The name is found in the Germany Genealogical Register
from that time down to the sixteenth century. The name is variously spelled,
Heilman, Heylman, Hileman and Hyleman in old records.Peter Heilman, Sr., the Doctor’s great-grandfather, was born in 1750 in
Alsace-Lorraine, and was two years old when he came to America with his
father, Christian Heilman; his mother, the wife of Christian Heilman, died
during the voyage. They settled in Northampton county, Pa. It is not known
whether Christian remarried or not, but Peter said he had a brother or half-
brother named Michael. Peter Heilman learned the trade of weaver. According to
some accounts he and his wife, Elizabeth (Harter), came to what was later
Kittanning township, Armstrong county, in 1795-96, and (according to his
garndson (sic), John Heilman, 1913) died in 1833, at the age of eighty-two
years. His son Jacob, who was eighty-six years old in 1882, was according to
one account born there. In another Jacob’s birth is given as occurring in
Northampton county, Pa., in April, 1791, and in that account he is said to
have died Jan. 27, 1877 (or December 27, 1876), aged nearly eighty-six (if he
had lived to April 12th following he would have been eighty-six.) At any rate,
the Heilmans were among the pioneer families of Kittanning township, and of
the substantial class of early settlers. Various members of the family were
recorded in the assessment lists of 1807 as owners of mills, distilleries and
large tracts of land, and the Heilman whiskey, made by Jacob Heilman, was
celebrated in its day.Peter Heilman, Sr., occupied a high position in his community, was an
active Lutheran, and was one of the two who were most active and liberal at
the time of the organization of the first church here. He and his wife were
both noted for their worth as Christian workers and neighbors. She, too, was a
weaver, famed all over this section for her skill, and she was a remarkable
woman in many other ways. She was strong physically, handsome of feature and
finely built, her small feet and hands, with their tapering fingers, being
much admired. She and her husband were noted for their health and wholesome
good nature, which made them universally loved, and bequeathed to their
descendants a heritage which has made them average well with any family in the
county, for strength, independence, honesty and intelligence, for their
posterity have shown many of their excellent characteristics. Their family
consisted of twelve sons and daughters: Gertrude married Jacob Beaser (or
Pieser) and had a family; Christina married Joseph Beaser (or Pieser), brother
of her sister Gertrude’s husband; Mary (Polly) married Frederick Tarr; Susanna
married John King, grandfather of the present judge elect; John married
Elizabeth Yount; Daniel married Lydia Yount; Solomon married Hannah Yount;
Frederick married Margaret Ehinger; Robert died in boyhood; Margaret married
John Stitt; Elizabeth (who was a cripple) died; Jacob married Susanna
Waltenbaugh.Daniel Heilman, son of Peter Heilman, Sr., was the Doctor’s grandfather. He
lived in Kittanning township, following farming until his death, which
occurred in 1852, when he was fifty years of age. His wife, Lydia (Yount), was
a daughter of Daniel Yount (Yunt or Aundt), and belonged also to a family of
pioneers of this township whose members were among the large land holders
there. The name is written Yundt in old records, and in German Aundt. Mr. and
Mrs. Heilman had the following children: Solomon, Daniel, George, Samuel (born
Aug. 29, 1822, died June 27, 1888), Isaac, Simon, Harry, Eve (married George
Sheaffer), and Lydia (Mrs. George Eimon), and Susie and Elizabeth, who died
young.Solomon Heilman, son of Daniel, married Elizabeth Schreckengost, who was
the daughter of Benjamin and Susanna (Oury) Schreckengost, and came of honored
and substantial pioneer stock of Armstrong county. Her father was a large
landowner. The Schreckengosts claim descent from the German nobility and were
entitled to a large landed estate in Germany.Uriah Oury Heilman, son of Solomon, began his education in the common
schools and later attended Elderton Academy and Thiel College, at Greenville,
Pa. Then he taught school for three years, during part of this time also
reading medicine with Dr. James Carnahan, at Cochran Mills, in Burrell
township, and he continued his medical studies at the University of Wooster,
Ohio; then he read with Dr. M. Alter, of Kittanning, son of the great Dr.
David Alter, of Freeport, taking a special course in chemistry and
microscopical work. Entering the College of Physicians and Surgeons at
Baltimore, Md., he was graduated therefrom in April, 1881, and received a
special diploma from Prof. John S. Lynch, of that institution, for work in
diseases of the heart, throat and lungs. Locating in Parks township, Armstrong
Co., Pa. (Dine postoffice), he remained there engaged in practice for five and
a half years, at the end of the period removing to Philadelphia, where he
attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical
College under Samuel Gross, Sr., Bartholow, Da Costa, Agnew, Ashhurst, Pepper
and Wood, taking a post- graduate course at Jefferson. In 887 Dr. Heilman came
to Leechburg, where he has ever since been actively engaged in practice. His
success has been won by hard work and conscientious devotion to the needs of
his patrons. Personally and professionally his standing is the highest.On April 7, 1881, Dr. Heilman married Esther M. Heckman, who was born in
what is now Parks township, Armstrong county, daughter of Gideon and Sarah (Schumaker)
Heckman and granddaughter of Abraham Heckman, a pioneer of Armstrong county,
who married Ester Klingensmith, a member of another pioneer family.Daniel Schumaker, maternal grandfather of Mrs. Heilman, was also a pioneer
settler in Armstrong county, and had children: Josiah, who died aged twenty-
four, unmarried; Eliza, who married Thomas Young; Sarah, Mrs. Heilman’s
mother; Rev. Isaiah W.; Margaret, who married Josiah Schaul; Lucinda, who
married Isaac E. Shumaker; Mary, who married Charles W. Webster; Rev. L. J.;
Rev. Albert; John; and Joseph, who was a soldier in the Civil war.Seven children have been born to Dr. and Mrs. Heilman; Rena May graduated
from the Woman’s Medical College, Philadelphia, and practiced at Leechburg for
nearly seven years, until her marriage to Alexander P. Lindsay, an attorney of
Pittsburgh, Pa. (they have one son, Alexander H.); Marlin W., a graduate of
the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, now engaged in
practice at Tarentum, Pa., married Martha Grant, of Franklin, Pa.; Grace
Goldie is a graduate of Bryn Athyn Seminary, near Philadelphia, and of the
Western Conservatory of Music, Pittsburgh, and is now engaged in teaching
music in Pittsburgh and Leechburg; Otho Ward graduated from the University of
Pennsylvania in Arts and Science (B. S.) and is now engaged in teaching in the
Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.; Bessie, a graduate of the Bryn
Athyn Seminary, took a three years’ course under Prof. Wilber H. Green in
literature and vocal music, and is engaged in teaching; H. Glenn is attending
Leechburg high school, from which his brothers and sisters also graduated;
Carroll Vernon died when eleven years old, of rheumatism of the heart, brought
on by exposure.Dr. Heilman and his wife are member of the General Church of the New
Jerusalem, East End, Pittsburgh.
Source: Page(s) PAGES 425-427,
Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and Present, J.H. Beers &
Co., 1914Transcribed July 1998 by Caral Mechling Bennett 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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