CHASE, JOHN MITCHELL. The subject of this sketch was born in Cuyahoga
county, Ohio, on the 11th day of March, in the year 1820. Of the children born to Benjamin
and Eliza (Swan) Chase, he was the fourth, there being three older and one
younger than he. In the year 1823 the family left Ohio, and took up their
residence in Broome county, N. Y., where, in the next year, the father died,
leaving to the mother the care of the children, and with no means for their
support, save alone that acquired by the labor of her own hands. At the age of
seven years John M. was placed under the care of strangers, and performed such
work as could be done by a child on a farm, In this manner, living about, he
passed about six years, when, with an uncle, John Swan, father of
"Squire" Henry Swan, of Ansonville, he came to Pennsylvania and stayed
about three years, working on Mr. Swan's farm and elsewhere. After this he
returned to Broome county, traveling the entire distance on foot; in fact he
thrice made this journey, a distance of nearly two hundred and fifty miles
between these points. After working in various places about Binghamton for about
two years, and boating on the old Chenango and Erie Canals, rendering his mother
and step-father (his mother having remarried) such assistance as lay in his
power, young Chase returned to this county. He made a purchase of a parcel of
land and commenced an improvement, but through disappointment, not
discouragement, for the latter was foreign to his nature, he gave up this land,
and thereafter worked around for about two years. He next bought a piece of land
on Little Clearfield Creek, and built thereon a small cabin in which he lived.
This cabin, or shanty, was a rudely constructed affair, having a small opening
for means of entrance, and before which he rolled a log to prevent intrusion by
wild animals which infested the locality. Having enlarged the building and made
it a fit habitation, he sent for his parents, and for the remainder of their
days upon earth this son was their main stay, comfort and support.
On the 18th day of September, in the year 1845, then being
twenty-five years of age, John M. Chase united in marriage with Tobitha,
daughter of William Williams. Of this marriage eleven children have been born,
nine of whom are still living.
Being possessed of indomitable courage, and good, sound
judgment, Mr. Chase successfully overcame the poverty, trials and hardships
incident to pioneer life, and happily and deservedly acquired a home in the
county, bordering on Clearfield Creek, but, in 1852, moved over into the
northwest part of Woodward township, where he made a comfortable home, and where
he has ever since resided. His chief occupation in life has been lumbering, and
it is a well and authenticated fact, that in this pursuit, he has been eminently
successful, and acquired vast tracts of land, aggregating about seven thousand
acres in extent, and on these tracts there still stands some of the best timber
in the county; moreover, large areas of the land are known to be underlaid with coal deposits, but the latter have not been developed to any
considerable extent.
On the 14th day of August, 1862, in pursuance of what he
believed to be a plain duty, Mr. Chase enlisted in Company B, One Hundred and
Forty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and, at the organization of the
company he was elected to a lieutenancy, but Governor Curtain, whose personal
friend he was, soon after appointed him to the position of regimental
quartermaster. Mr. Chase remained in the service about nineteen months, when,
having lost the use of his limbs, he was discharged upon the surgeon's
certificate of disability.
No less noticeable and no less eventful than his life as a
man of business, has been the life of John M. Chase as a Christian gentlemen. In
early life he was, in a measure, under the teachings and influences of
Universalism, to which, for a time, he had strong inclinations; but, having been
brought into frequent residence with families whose faith and tendencies was
more orthodox, and where daily prayer was observed, he gradually changed his
views, and, as a result of earnest thought and deep conviction, he became
converted. Later in life he was led under the influences of the Baptist
Church, of which he became a member, and still later, a minister. He was
regularly ordained in the year 1870, and for a period of nine years, officiated
in various localities in the county, but his health failing, he was advised by
physicians to retire from active ministerial labor.
Although he has never been an aspirant for political
preferment, Mr. Chase has been an active thinker and worker in such causes as he
believed to be for the general well-fare. He was before the war, a thorough and
proclaimed abolitionist, and as such "shouldered a gun." He afterward
held to the principles of the Republican party, but finally became an outspoken
advocate of prohibition, working zealously in that cause.
Source: Pages 695-695, History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania,
edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich, Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Co., Publishers,
1887.
Transcribed August 1999 by Elizabeth Westfall Johnson for the Clearfield County
Aldrich Project
Published 1999 by the Clearfield County Genealogy Project
