My Genealogy Hound

REV. JOSIAH DILLON, Coraopolis, son of Samuel and Vashti Dillon, was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, Oct. 7, 1822. His father was a native of Culpeper county, Va., and was a cabinet-maker and carpenter; his mother, nee Barton, was born in New Jersey, and removed with her father’s family into the state of Ohio in 1806. Mr. Dillon’s parents were of the Quaker persuasion. James Yates, one of the parties employed by Thomas Penn in 1732 to walk for the land purchased from the Indian sachem, Tedyuscung, was Mr. Dillon’s paternal great grandfather. In 1828 our subject’s family removed to Wheeling. Mr. Dillon first attended an academy in Parkersburg, afterward a classical academy in Wheeling. He was received into the Pittsburgh conference in June, 1844, and filled various appointments in Western Virginia, Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania until 1853. when ill health compelled him to ask for a superannuated relation. He removed from the town of Beaver, where he was then stationed, to the city of Wheeling, where he was employed as clerk in his brother’s establishment, and during the eight years he was with his brother he was interested in steamboats. When he came to Coraopolis (then Middletown), in 1869, he found a few Methodists, to whom he preached five years, and worked with a zeal that resulted in the restoration of the charge to conference, the removal of one church edifice to a more eligible site and the erection of a new church in Shousetown. In 1887 he supplied Chapline Street station in the city of Wheeling. Mr. Dillon’s first wife was a daughter of Mark and Eleanor Watson, and was born in Middleton, Durham, England, March 22, 1822. They were united in marriage Sept. 10, 1849, in Middletown, this county, where she died May 1, 1858. He had by her four children, two of whom died in infancy; two, F. B. and W. B., grew up to manhood, the latter dying Dec. 29, 1887. Feb. 5, 1862, he was united in marriage with his present wife, Mrs. L. V. Burns, nee Laidley, who was born in West Virginia, and by her had four children: one died in infancy, and Robert, Irene and Henry Harman, now living. Mr. Dillon served two terms as burgess of Coraopolis. He has been interested in various journals, and is the author of several works (theological and metaphysical), as well as numerous sermons and reviews on different subjects.