My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS FAWCETT, coal-operator, Pittsburgh, Pa., was born at Ravensdale, near Newcastle, England, May 6, 1827. The following year his parents, James and Elizabeth (Parker) Fawcett, came to Pittsburgh and settled on the South Side. James Fawcett was one of the pioneers in the coal business on the river, built many flatboats, mined coal at Green Springs, and supplied coal to steamers after the “ floaters” or “broadhorns” were abandoned. He retired from business in 1849, and died in 1876; his wife died in 1874, aged seventy-one. James Fawcett was one of the incorporators of the First National Bank, and was its second president, holding that position at the time of his death. For more than forty years he was associated with the M. E. Church, and was a class leader in a South Side congregation.

Thomas, the eldest of his seven children, was reared in the city, attending the public schools till thirteen years old, when he entered a select school, taught by Smith and Patch, on the site now occupied by the Monongahela House. In 1842 he took employment in a general boat store, and three years later went into the grocery business on the South Side. After six years he sold out and commenced river trade, making his first trip to New Orleans with coal, in barges, in 1850. In 1858 he built the steamer Ormsby, in 1863 purchased the Jacob Painter, and two years later built the Painter No. 2. About the same time he bought the Bengal Tiger, and supplied coal to the government vessels on the lower Mississippi. Among the large steam-craft which he has built are the Lion, Boaz, Dart, Oakland, Acorn, Boaz No. 2, Maggie and Convoy, the last three of which are now in his service on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In 1874 Mr. Fawcett bought the Green Springs coal mines, from which he took ten million bushels of coal, the supply being exhausted in 1886. He has also mined on lands owned by others, having purchased the mineral, and owns three hundred acres of land, from which he is mining, at Webster, on the Monongahela.

Mr. Fawcett was an incorporator of the Central Bank, of which he has been president from its organization; was three years direct or in the Citizens’ Bank before it organized under the national system, and has been a director of the Birmingham Bridge company since its organization; is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and adheres to the religious creed of his father. Associating with the whigs on becoming a voter, he has continued on the same line with the republican party. In 1847 Mr. Fawcett married Margery Haughton, of English ancestry and American birth, and of their nine children six are living: James T., Thomas, Elizabeth (Mrs. Lambert Hartley, in Tarentum, Pa.), Clara Estella (wife of Henry Lloyd, Pittsburgh), Cora B. and Louis P. The deceased were the fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, in order of age, viz.: Margaret Taylor (Mrs. H. Lloyd), Jennie Wilson and Florence Kramer. The oldest son has been a partner in the coal business since 1872, and the second since 1874.