My Genealogy Hound

JAMES DAVISON CAROTHERS, plasterer, Wilkinsburg, was born in May, 1833, on the north side of Penn avenue, about midway between Wood and Centre streets. His grandfather, Charles Carothers, came from Ireland when a young man, and Charles, son of the latter, was born in Patton (then Plum) township in 1797. Charles, Jr., married Eliza McCowan, who was born in what is now Penn, and opened a store on the site of Wilkinsburg about 1831. He was the first justice elected here, and was a stanch whig. After doing business some time in Pittsburgh, he went to New Castle in 1853, and kept store twenty years. He died in Wilkinsburg in 1876, in his seventy-second year; his widow died July 4, 1888, in her eightieth year; they were both identified with the Presbyterian Church. They reared two daughters and one son: Mary (Mrs. H. W. Sumner), Mary Margaret (wife of J. W. F. Beatty) and James D. The subject of this memoir received a common-school education in Wilkinsburg, Pittsburgh, and in Monroeville, and when twenty years old began work at plastering, which trade he has followed ever since. For the last sixteen years he has dwelt at Wilkinsburg, and is united with the Presbyterian Church, A. O. U. W. and R. A., and he is a republican. In 1859 Mr. Carothers married Olivia J. Johnston, born in Penn, sister of W. F. Johnston (whose sketch appears elsewhere). Mrs. Carothers died in March, 1881, in her forty-seventh year, leaving three children: Harry McMillen, in Anson, Mo.; Ellen Mary, wife of Curtis Graham, in Wilkinsburg, and Charles Monroe, in Wilkinsburg; Frances, the third born, died in infancy.