My Genealogy Hound

William McDivitt, proprietor of the Seneca Model Roller Mills, is a native of Huntington County, Penn., born November 20, 1837. He is the son of Matthew and Jane (Patterson) McDivitt, of Scotch and Irish descent, respectively. The father died in Pennsylvania in 1854; the mother is still living at the age of seventy years, a resident of Pennsylvania. William is the eldest of a family of five children, three sons and two daughters. He was reared in Huntington, receiving his education there; came west in 1869, locating in Neosho, Newton Co., Mo., where he farmed for some time, but soon after engaged in the hardware trade, and later in the woolen mill business at Neosho, but afterward traded the mill for the Seneca Mills. He was married in Pennsylvania, October 25, 1867, to Miss Anna Martin, a native of Huntington County, Penn., and the daughter of Matthew Martin. She died in 1871. By this union were born two children, Jessie and Annie. September 20, 1878, Mr. McDivitt took, for his second and present wife, Miss Elizabeth McWhorters, a native of Illinois. The fruit of this union was the birth of two children, Lander and Frank. Mr. McDivitt is a member of the Presbyterian Church, is a Republican in politics, is a member of the city council, and of the Masonic fraternity, being secretary of the same, and is a member of the K. of H., being reporter of the same.

Seneca Model Roller Mills.—This mill was started after the building of the railway into Seneca. In 1879 William McDivitt came to Seneca and purchased the mill from Z. P. Cogswell and improved it greatly. In 1886 he put in a complete new roller system, the work being done by the Haldeman & Talley Millwrighting Company, of St. Louis, Mo. The mill has now a capacity of over sixty barrels per day, and is operated by a steam engine of forty-horse power. During the busy season they employ eight or nine men, and they operate all the year round. They find a market for nearly all their produce on the line of the San Francisco Railroad, and at local points. Their principal brands are A 1, Model and Gilt Edge.