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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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SETH L. SCHOLL, one of the leading brick makers of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, is a native of Gwynedd township, where he was born October 8, 1842. He is the son of Henry and Mary Ann (Lake) Scholl. The family is one of the oldest in the vicinity of Lansdale.
Mr. Scholl’s educational advantages were somewhat limited, but he made the most of them, and is an uncommonly well informed man. He acquired a knowledge of the elementary branches at the neighborhood schools and, being an indefatigable reader, supplemented what he had learned at school by a large amount of knowledge gleaned from books, which gave him mental culture far above the average. At the age of eleven years he left school and entered the first brickyard established at Lansdale. He learned the trade thoroughly in all its branches, growing up, as it were, in the new industry so far as his home town was concerned, became the master of the art and mystery of brickmaking in all its varied phases, and is now the most extensive manufacturer of bricks in that section of Montgomery county. That industry is now one of the most important in that thriving borough, and Mr. Scholl is the owner also of a large landed estate in and adjoining the town. He is prominently identified with every movement having for its object the improvement of Lansdale, being an enthusiast on that subject. He began business for himself in 1860 and has been engaged in it ever since. Mr. Scholl was a member of the first town council of the borough of Lansdale, and has also been a member of its board of school directors, having a deep interest in all educational progress. He is an original member of St. John’s Reformed church of that place, and was long one of its deacons. He has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since 1864, and has passed through all the chairs, being a member of the grand lodge of Pennsylvania. He is also a prominent member of the Senior Order of United American Mechanics, and of the Elks. He has been a resident of Lansdale for more than three score years. The locomotive snow-broom is Mr. Scholl’s invention, and it is sold wherever railroads are in operation, the world over. Mr. Scholl has also done much in the way of the manufacture of cigar boxes. He is an inventive genius as well as a practical man of business, and has patented many of his inventions. He is as highly esteemed as he is well known to the people of Lansdale and a wide circle of acquaintances outside of that borough. Few men in the county are better or more favorably known. In 1871 and 1872 he owned and operated a boat on the Delaware canal, in connection with the sale of his bricks. He ships large quantities of his bricks to Philadelphia by railroad, at the present time, as well as to Norristown and other places. He recently supplied a large quantity to the board of trustees of the Norristown Hospital for the Insane for the erection of the new Nurses’ Home at that institution. He has also filled many other large contracts where a superior article of bricks is required. Mr. Scholl is an earnest and active Republican, and loses no opportunity of aiding in the election of its candidates, and the enforcement of its policy. He and his family attend the Reformed church.
Mr. Scholl married, June 7, 1866, Ann Catharine, daughter of Benjamin and Mary Ambler, farmers of Blue Bell, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Seth L. Scholl: Benjamin A., born April 7, 1867, married Mary Nicom, and has three children; Henry O., born February 16, 1869, married Letitia Gerhart, and has three children; Horace Linwood, born January 12, 1871, died September 17, 1872; Ida May, born November 5, 1872, married Frederick Hunther, and has two children; Mary Ella, born June 11, 1878, unmarried.
The Scholl family in Montgomery county are descended from George Scholl, the first of the name in Pennsylvania, who in 1778 with his brother John, emigrated from Germany to America. John settled in Virginia, while George located in Swamp. He was a saddler and harness maker by occupation, and enlisted in the continental army as a saddler, and served throughout the Revolutionary war in that useful and necessary capacity, his little family meanwhile being domiciled in the city of Philadelphia. At the time the war ended George Scholl went into what was known as “The Wilderness” on Branch Creek, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, not far from where Trumbauersville is now located, where he took up a tract of 300 acres of land and reared a family of children. One of these was Michael Scholl, grandfather of Seth L. Scholl, of Lansdale, born December 1, 1784.
In 1871 Michael Scholl married, July 12, 1807, Mary, daughter of Conrad Hoot, who resided where is now the flourishing borough of North Wales, then Gwynedd township. Michael Scholl died February 25, 1858, and his wife, who was born October 7, 1789, died March 25, 1870. Both were buried in Wentz’s Reformed church cemetery on the Skippack road, above Centre Point, in Worcester township. Their children: Jacob, Margaret, Catharine, Henry S., father of Seth L. Scholl; Matilda, George, Amanda, and Elizabeth. Previous to locating in Montgomery county, Michael Scholl resided for a time at Chestnut Hill, in Philadelphia county. He was a farmer by occupation and followed that employment all his life, and was widely known and highly respected in the community in which he lived.
Henry Scholl (father) was born July 25, 1816, in Chestnut Hill. He was educated in the schools of the vicinity, and on reaching the age of manhood learned the trade of a butcher, which he followed for some years, and later became a farmer, which occupation he pursued until he retired in the later years of his life. In politics he was a Whig and Republican. He married, December 1, 1839, Mary Ann, daughter of Andrew and Eustina Lake, of the city of Philadelphia, their children being: Maria, born October 5, 1840, married John F. Ambler, of Lansdale; Seth L., subject of this sketch; Frederick, born April 23, 1844, married, December 5, 1872, Louisa, daughter of Seth Good; Franklin, born February 9, 1846, married, May 16, 1874, Sarah Beck, born June 18, 1856; Sarah, born in 1848, died unmarried, in 1870; Elizabeth, born January 31, 1851, married, October 6, 1870, Henry L. Beck, born September, 1850; Henry L., born May 1, 1854, married, December 25, 1879, Letitia R. Pownall.
John Ambler, grandfather of Mrs. Seth L. Scholl, was born May 8, 1783, and died April 9, 1859. He married Ann Morgan, born May 1, 1784, died April 4, 1863. Their children were: Thomas, Benjamin (father of Mrs. Scholl), Chalkley, Joseph, John and David (twins), Septimus, Letitia and Sarah.
Benjamin Ambler (father of Mrs. Scholl) was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, September 3, 1810, and married, March 1, 1838, Mary, daughter of John and Catharine Fitzgerald. Their children: John F., born June 12, 1840, married, January 28, 1864, Maria, sister of Seth L. Scholl; Ann Catharine, born May 30, 1842, (wife of Seth L. Scholl); Thomas Ellwood, born November 30, 1843, married, June 20, 1867, Harriet E. Makens; Benjamin Morgan, born June 13, 1846, married March 5, 1868, Elizabeth Street. John Fitzgerald (maternal grandfather of Mrs. Seth L. Scholl), born July 4, 1791, died December 4, 1872. His wife, Catharine, born September 9, 1790, died July 14, 1872.
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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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