My Genealogy Hound

JOHN DALZELL, member of Congress, Pittsburgh, is an example of the success which attends well and intelligently directed industry. His parents, Samuel and Mary (McDonnell) Dalzell, came from County Down, Ireland, to America about 1840. John Dalzell was born in New York city April 19, 1845, and came with his parents to Pittsburgh in 1847. He attended the common school and the University of Western Pennsylvania, and graduated from Yale College at the age of twenty. He read law with John H. Hampton, and was admitted to the bar in 1867, at once beginning practice as partner with his preceptor. For twenty years he acted with him as attorney for the Pennsylvania Railway company and its western leased lines, and was also solicitor for numerous corporations, among others for those in which George Westinghouse, Jr., was a moving spirit. Through an extensive practice, to which he gave his earnest attention and his best talents, he accumulated what is considered a large fortune for a young attorney.

He is a director of the Braddock National Bank, and is interested in other progressive and profitable institutions of the county. In 1886 he was elected a member of the Lth Congress by the republicans, having previously taken no active part in politics. He at once distinguished himself in that body, and in 1888 was returned to the LIst Congress by a large majority.

In 1867 Mr. Dalzell married Miss Mary L., daughter of Peter Duff, the founder or the well-known Duff’s Business College. Mrs. Dalzell is a native of Pittsburgh, and is the mother of four living children: William S., Bessie M., Samuel and Robert D. Mr. Dalzell resides with his family at Swissvale, where they attend the Presbyterian church. A flourishing social and political club, called the Dalzell Republican club, is established in handsome quarters at this pleasant suburb of Pittsburgh.