My Genealogy Hound

FRANK SEMPLE, private secretary, Sewickley. William Semple, grandfather of our subject, was born in 1771, near Dublin, Ireland, came to America in 1795, and at Trenton, N. J., learned architecture. He came to Pittsburgh about the year 1800, and worked on the old courthouse on the Diamond. He followed his trade till the latter part of his life, when he kept a hardware store. He died in 1829. He married Anna, daughter of Charles Bonner, who fought in all the principal battles of the Revolution, and they had nine children: Nancy, Alexander B., William M., Samuel W., Mary C., Charles, Ellen, John B. and Frank. Of these, Samuel W. was a retail dry-goods merchant in Louisville, and later was in the iron business in the Pennsylvania mountains. Another son, John B. Semple, the father of Frank, was born in Pittsburgh, where he was in the wholesale dry goods business, and afterward, and at the time of his death, a member of the firm of Semple & Jones, bankers. He married Mary J. Blair, of Washington, Pa., and they became the parents of three children: Mrs. Louisa Clarke, Frank and Mrs. Mary Sharpe. At his death, in 1873, his son Frank continued the banking business, and in 1881 his partner, John B. Jones, sold his interest, the firm then being known as Semple & Thompson, who conducted the business till 1888, when our subject sold his interest to Mr. Thompson, and has since then been engaged in the railroad and coal business. He was educated in Pittsburgh, clerked in a dry-goods store, and later in a bank, after which he entered Yale College. Later he accompanied Prof. Benj. Silliman, of Yale College, as private secretary, inspecting the mines of California. At present he is attending to the private business of William Thaw.