My Genealogy Hound

JOHN EWING SPEER, attorney at law, office 157 Fourth avenue, Pittsburgh, residence McKeesport, was born in San Francisco, Cal., February 23, 1853, a son of Rev. William and Elizabeth B. (Ewing) Speer. His paternal grandfather, James R. Speer, was a prominent physician of Pittsburgh, and also secretary and treasurer of the Allegheny cemetery of Pittsburgh. Our subject’s great-great-grandfather, James Speer, a farmer, was a native of Ireland, and immigrated to America in 1760, settling in the Peach Bottom, in Cumberland valley, Pa., where he lived and died. Several of his sons participated in the Revolution. Another son, William, was a distinguished divine of the Presbyterian Church, and was pastor of the first Presbyterian church organized at Greensburg, one hundred years ago. The maternal grandfather of subject was Hon. John H. Ewing, of Washington, Pa., a son of William Ewing, one of the earliest Scotch-Irish settlers in Fayette county, three of whose descendants have been judges of county courts. Rev. William Speer was one of the early missionaries of the Presbyterian Church to China, and the first missionary to the Chinese of the Pacific coast, and was afterward secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Education of Philadelphia; is now engaged in literary work at Washington, Pa., and is the author of “The Oldest and Newest Empire, or China and the United States.”

The subject of this memoir was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, and Princeton College, graduating from the latter in 1873. In that year he began the study of law in Philadelphia, and took a partial course at the university law school of that city. In 1875 he removed to Pittsburgh, and was admitted to the Allegheny county bar in March, 1876. He was associated for more than two years in business with Malcolm Hay, late assistant postmaster-general. On September 1, 1876, he took up his residence in McKeesport, but still retains his office in Pittsburgh, where he has a large and growing practice. He has taken some interest in politics; was secretary of the state convention in 1874, and is a stanch high-tariff republican.