My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM WOODS, JR., undertaker, auctioneer and farmer, Upper St. Clair, was born April 6, 1839, near his present farm; a son of John and Sarah (Robb) Woods, natives of this county, born in 1816 and Nov. 7, 1817, respectively, latter of whom died May 23, 1848. His paternal grandparents were Rev. William and Frances Woods; former born March 6, 1771, ordained pastor of Bethel Church June 28, 1797, continuing until April, 1834, and died Oct. 17, 1834. The subject of this memoir married, Oct. 30, 1863, Mary Agnes Morrow, born in Snowden township Aug. 17, 1839, a daughter of Thomas and Ann (Esby) Morrow, who were born respectively in Snowden and Upper St. Clair townships. Her father died Oct. 24, 1871, aged sixty-four years, and her mother July 26, 1849, aged thirty-seven years. Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Woods: One died in infancy; John E., born Feb. 16, 1872, died March 28, 1875, and William Robb, born June 14, 1868, now in business with his father. For nineteen years after Mr. Woods was married he leased his present farm from his father, but in 1886 his father deeded the place to him. In 1866 he began auctioneering, at which he has been very successful; in 1874 he added the undertaking business, also carrying on the farm, his son assisting him in all his business. Mr. Woods was elected justice of the peace in 1883, and reelected in 1888. Mr. Woods’ father is still living on the old farm near the Bethel Academy. His only brother, Samuel T. Woods, a very promising young man, served in Co. D, 149th P. V., and was killed at the battle of the Wilderness, May 7, 1864, aged twenty-two years. His body was never recovered, but a monument is erected to his memory in Bethel cemetery bearing the inscription: “I shall appear on the morning of the resurrection.”

Sarah F., only sister of the present subject, married Rev. R. I. Evans about the year 1859, and left for Olympia, W. T., as a missionary. In 1862 he died of consumption, leaving her far from home with a little boy, without a single relative; but she in her day of trial took hold of the many promises in behalf of the widow and orphans, and started for home, landing in the fall of 1863. April 24, 1864, her little son, Elliott W. Evans, died, and she was again left to mourn as none but a mother can mourn; but this time she was surrounded by many kind friends. About two years later she married Rev. M. L. Anderson and settled in Orrville, Ohio, where she died at the age of thirty years and six months. “Blessed are they who die in the Lord.”