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Summerhill, Jackson, Taylor, Yoder and Richland and the towns of Johnstown and Wilmore. This office has held until he removed to Somerset county in 1847. Mr. Horner was married the second time in 1828. He had in all fifteen children. His remains are interred in the Horner family burying-ground, since removed to Sandyvale cemetery. Jacob Horner, the father of our subject, was born in Hornerstown, now Seventh ward, Johnstown, in 1803, and at one time owned the greater part of the land upon which it was built and laid out the town, also Sandyvale cemetery, in the Seventh ward of the city of Johnstown. For a few years he was assistant superintendent of the old Portage railroad, and was a boss on a portion of the old Pennsylvania canal. In politics he was a democrat, and filled the office of poor-house director for three years, and that of council for several terms in the borough of Johnstown, and was captain and owner of three different canal-boats in the old canal days. He died in December, 1874, and was buried in Sandyvale cemetery, January 1, 1875. Jacob C. Horner was reared in Hornerstown and received a common-school education. On leaving school he was employed on the old homestead farm and also boated on the old Pennsylvania canal. In 1857 he went to work for the Cambria Iron company, heating rails; he remained in their employ twenty-seven years. Since 1884 he has lived a comparatively retired life. Politically Mr. Horner is a democrat and served six years as councilman in the borough of Johnstown before the organization of the city, and four years as select councilman of the city, and is at present the oldest resident of his ward. In 1857 he married Miss Mary Ann Shaffer, a daughter of Martin and Mary Ann Shaffer, |
and grand-daughter of Judge Kurtz, of Somerset, Pennsylvania. They have five sons and three daughters living: Eva Belle, the wife of George A. Maters, of Johnstown; Dora C., the wife of Alonzo Singer, of Johnstown; Edward W., Curtis E., Jacob M., Bertie E., Otho I., and Emory C. His mother, Catharine Horner, died September 23, 1895, in the eighty-fourth year of her age.
JOHN H. BENFORD is the son of David and Rebecca (Wagner) Benford, and was born July 18, 1832, at Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. His father was born in Somerset county, Pennsylvania, and when a young man moved to Mt. Pleasant. Later, when the subject of this sketch was four or five years of age, his parents removed to Allegheny City, where they resided for about ten years, when they removed to Stoyestown, Somerset county, where the father lived until his death in 1891, at the age of eight-five years. He was a tanner by trade, and continued in this business until the close of his life. He was an honored member of the Lutheran church. |
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