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Below is a family biography included in the History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania published in 1889 by A. Warner & Co. These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary. Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more. There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.
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OLIVER EVANS, SR. (deceased), McKeesport, was born in McKeesport Nov. 16, 1816, and is a son of James and Emily (Alexander) Evans. James Evans was born near Wilmington, Del., where he was reared and educated. He was a hatter by trade, settled in McKeesport in 1798, and later opened a store with a hat shop in connection. He was for many years magistrate, by appointment from the governor of the state, until the office became elective. He died in 1846. His wife was a daughter of William Alexander, of the Cumberland valley, and they had eight children: Ann M., Mrs. Dr. George Huey; John; Emily, Mrs. Dr. Robt. McClellan; James; Hannah, Mrs. Hugh Roland; Harriet, Mrs. David King; Oliver and George. Oliver, the subject of this memoir, was reared and educated in McKeesport and studied the higher languages with his brother-in-law, Dr. Robert McClellan, of Mercer, Pa., with a view of taking up medicine as a profession, but on account of ill health abandoned it and was all his life a farmer.
He married, Nov. 24, 1839, Mary A., daughter of Thomas and Ann (Kuhn) Sampson, of Versailles township, by whom he had five children: James, Thomas S. (who died), Cadwallader, Anna M. (Mrs. J. W. Bailie), and Oliver, Jr. Mr. Evans was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and was a democrat of the old school. He died at his residence on Capitol hill, Dec. 7, 1888.
Although living in comparative retirement, he was known to all as a man of strong convictions, of strict integrity and decided views on all public questions. Of great energy and tireless activity in his daily pursuits, he was no less active mentally, and always found time to indulge his early love for literature and to gratify his desire for information on current events. Of a pioneer family, he saw the hamlet of his youth in a few years become a busy manufacturing city of twenty thousand people, and, with full faith in its future, he passed to his rest, after a long life, well spent, supported by the Christian’s confident trust in his Savior and honored by all who knew him.
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This family biography is one of 2,156 biographies included in the History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania published in 1889 by A. Warner & Co.
View additional Allegheny County, Pennsylvania family biographies here: Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Biographies
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