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John A. Proper
JOHN A. PROPER, farmer and oil producer. Tionesta, a native of Plum
township, Venango Co., Penn., born September 12, 1815, is a son of Daniel and
Margaret (Archer) Proper, and is of Holland-Dutch and Highland-Scotch descent.
His paternal grandfather, Samuel Proper, and maternal grandfather, John
Archer, were pioneers of Plum and Cherry Tree townships, respectively, in
Venango county. Daniel Proper was a farmer by occupation, and cleared and
improved a farm in Plum township, on which he lived and died. Our subject was
reared in his native town, and received a limited education in the common
schools. Like many other pioneers’ sons, he experienced various hardships, and
at the age of twenty-one years left home and began life in Randolph, N. Y., as
a laborer at $10 per month. He later engaged as a jobber of lumber, in Warren
and Venango counties, and what is now Forest county, up to 1847. In that year
he purchased 1,300 acres of timber land in what is now Forest county, erected
two mills and manufactured about 15,000,000 feet of lumber. In 1855 he
purchased two farms in Clarion county, where he resided until 1867, carrying
on a lumber business at the same time. He then sold out and moved to Tionesta,
where he has since been engaged in various branches of business, including
that of hotel proprietor in the borough, four years, lumbering up to 1875, and
since 1881 he has been a producer of oil at Balltown, carrying on farming
also, near Tionesta. He owns two farms of 500 and 100 acres respectively, 200
acres of the former of which he had cleared himself. Mr. Proper was among the
best pilots on the Allegheny and Ohio rivers for a period of thirty years, and
underwent many hardships during that time. In the fall of 1847 he married
Sarah, daughter of Jacob and Mary Grove, of Plum township, Venango Co., Penn.,
and they have seven children: RozilIa (Mrs. Daniel Walters), Jennetta (Mrs.
Samuel Varner), Oliver W., Alice (Mrs. F. R. Lanson), J. Floyd, Eu Retta and
Forest C. Mr. Proper is a prominent and representative citizen of Tionesta;
has held many of its local offices, and is now serving his second term as
associate judge of Forest county. Politically he is a Republican. Judge Proper
has been one of the most rugged and enterprising pioneers of that section of
country, of remarkable strength, courage and powers of endurance; a natural
woodsman and noted hunter, having, in recent years, when nearly seventy years
of age, hunted and killed as many as four deer in one day. His pleasant home
is on the banks of the Allegheny river in Tionesta, where he is now living in
his old age, hale and hearty, known and respected by his numerous friends as
an honest man of undoubted integrity and worth.Source: Page(s) 937-938, Chapter 15 Biographical Sketches – Tionesta Township
and Borough of Tionesta
Hickory and Harmony Townships
History of Counties of McKean, Elk and Forest, Pennsylvania.
Chicago, J.H. Beers & Co., 1890.
Transcribed November 2005 by Nathan Zipfel for the Forest County Genealogy
Project
Published 2005 by the Forest County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project
Return to Forest County Home Page
(c) Forest County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project
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