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Below is a family biography included in the Biographical Annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania published in 1904 by T. S. Benham & Company and The Lewis Publishing Company; Elwood Roberts, Editor. 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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JACOB BLAKE GREGER, son of David and Catharine (Blake) Greger, was born September 13, 1838, at the family homestead near Blue Bell, in Whitpain township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He attended the Mount Pleasant school, and also what was known as the Central School, near Blue Bell, being employed also at intervals on the farm. At the age of seventeen years he became an apprentice to his cousin, David C. Greger, to learn the carpenter trade, serving thus nearly three years, at the end of which time he performed work on his own account for different residents of the neighborhood.
In October, 1861, he enlisted in Company H, Sixth Regiment Pennsylvania Cavalry, for three years’ service in the Union army during the rebellion. He participated in the following engagements: Hanover Court House, Beaver Dams, Gaines’ Mills, Peach Orchard, White Oak Swamp, Savage Station, Charles City Cross Roads and Malvern Hills, being advanced from private soldier to corporal, to sergeant and to orderly sergeant, and as such served at South Mountain and Antietam. He was with General Burnside at Fredericksburg, under General Hooker at the first battle of Chancellorsville, with General Stoneman in his famous raid around Richmond, and at Brandy Station and Beverly Ford. At the battle of Gettysburg, July 1-4, 1863, he was in command of a company. After that memorable action, the turning point of the war for the Union, he was under General George G. Meade, and was engaged in skirmishes at Williamsport, at Rappahannock Station, and later in the fighting at Culpeper Court House, Spottsylvania, and thence to North Anna and Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Gordonsville. He was also at West Point. He was with Sheridan on his daring cavalry raids in the Shenandoah Valley, after which he returned with his company to Pleasant Valley, Maryland, where he was mustered out of service in October, 1864. He then returned to his old home and took up the carpenter trade where he had laid it down to enter the service of his country.
Mr. Greger married, February 26, 1868, Mary, daughter of Nicholas and Mary (Sullivan) Newport, of Swedeland, in Upper Merion township, and located at Shannonville, now Audubon, in Lower Providence, where he was engaged in the occupation of a carpenter. He soon became interested in contract work, and in 1876 became actively engaged as a contractor and builder. He removed to Oaks Station, in Upper Providence township, in which locality he resided for a period of twenty-eight years, until March, 1903, when he removed with his family to Norristown. He now resides at No. 108 Franklin avenue. Although he is not so actively engaged in his occupation as at one time, he is by no means idle. In politics Mr. Greger is a Republican, but he is in no sense a politician, and takes but little active part in political affairs.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob B. Greger are: 1. Katharine Louise, born November 30, 1868, unmarried and resides with her parents. She attended Green Tree school, in Upper Providence township, until her fifteenth year, after which she entered Ursinus College, at Collegeville, and later the West Chester State Normal School. She taught school for thirteen years in Montgomery county, and was principal of the Mont Clare schools for four years. She is now engaged as private secretary to insurance brokers in Philadelphia. 2. Bertha, born September 14, 1870, married, November 5, 1903, Henry A. Longacre, son of David Longacre, of Jeffersonville, two miles above Norristown, Pennsylvania. He died May 13, 1903, and she now resides with her parents. 3. Maurice Newport, born January 2, 1879, married, April 29, 1903, Lydia, daughter of William and Eva Hagginbotham, of Mont Clare, Montgomery county, opposite Phoenixville. The couple live in Philadelphia, where Mr. Greger is engaged as a traveling salesman. They have one child, Mildred Ruth, born April 5, 1904. The family are members of the Lower Providence Baptist church.
Nicholas Newport, father of Mrs. Jacob B. Greger, was the eldest son of William and Mary Stafford Newport, of Duncormick, county Wexford, Ireland. William Newport was the son of Nicholas (1707-1770) and Mary Coush Newport, who are interred in the old churchyard of Mayglass, Ireland. The Newport family came originally from Waterford, and claim consanguinity with Sir John Newport, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer. The children of William Newport and Mary Stafford were: Nicholas (the father of Mrs. Greger), 1814-1853; Walter, born in 1816, died unmarried in 1880; Ellen, born 1819, wife of John Cox; Mary, born in 1821, married John Molloy and removed to Canada; Eliza, born in 1826, married John Coghlan, and after his death in 1875 she married Simon Purcell; John, born in 1834, married, February 18, 1853, Elizabeth Rossiter, and died in 1884.
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This family biography is one of more than 1,000 biographies included in the Biographical Annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania published in 1904 by T. S. Benham & Company and The Lewis Publishing Company. For the complete description, click here: Biographical Annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
View additional Montgomery County, Pennsylvania family biographies here: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Biographies
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