My Genealogy Hound

COL. JOSEPH TOTTON. Along the well known and highly respected citizens of Mechanicsburg, Pa., who has served his country in war and peace, Col. Joseph Totton is deserving of special mention. He is now prominent in business circles in that city as the proprietor of the Totton livery stables, as well as the supporter of all measures calculated to prove of benefit to his community. Col. Totton was born at Dillsburg, York county, Pa., July 8, 1823, son of John and Hattie (McClure) Totton.

John Totton was born in Portadown, Ireland. By trade he was a shoemaker. He enlisted in the English army, and served nine years during the French war, when he was brought to America, in 1812. He, however, refused to fight the Americans, and became a citizen of the United States, settling at Dillsburg, York county, where he married. His death occurred there in 1847, when he was sixty years of age. His wife, Hattie McClure, died in 1849, aged fifty-eight years, a consistent member of the Presbyterian Church. Their family consisted of six children: Joseph, Margaret, David, Margery, Rachel and Mary Ellen.

Col. Joseph Totton acquired an education in a little school house in Dillsburg, after which he learned the trade of shoemaker, and remained in his native town until 1855, when he went to Shippensburg. In 1857 he located in Mechanicsburg and embarked in a boot and shoe business, but at the outbreak of the Rebellion he raised the Cumberland Guards, which became Company H, 7th Pennsylvania Reserves, of which he was elected captain, and subsequently became a lieutenant-colonel. He remained with the regiment one year, when being compelled to resign on account of impaired health, he received an honorable discharge. He came home, and in a year opened his present livery stables. In 1873 he was elected sheriff of Cumberland county, and resided in Carlisle three years, during his term of office, since which time he has made Mechanicsburg his home.

On June 8, 1848, at Dillsburg, Mr. Totton was married to Miss Lydia Wagner, born in East Berlin, Adams Co., Pa., daughter of Samuel and Lydia (Oyler) Wagner, of whom the former, a blacksmith, was born in Adams county, the latter in Hanover, York county. Mr. and Mrs. Totton have had eleven children, nine of whom grew to maturity: David E., born in Dillsburg, Oct. 30, 1849; James M., born in Monroe township, Sept. 25, 1851; George B., born in Dillsburg, and now a farmer in Silver Spring township; Ellen, deceased, wife of Talbot Crane, of Cumberland county; Annie, of Mechanicsburg; Maggie, with her parents; Joseph. Jr.; John and Frank, who both assist their father; Samuel M. and Hattie, deceased. Mrs. Totton is a member of the Presbyterian Church, in which she is an active worker. Fraternally, Col. Totton is a member of Mechanicsburg Lodge No. 215, I. O. O. F., and is the oldest member of that organization in the town, having been connected with the lodge for fifty-seven years. He is also a member of Carlisle Post No. 201, G. A. R. Col. Totton is one of the prosperous business men of Mechanicsburg, and few are better or more favorably known in this locality than he. For the past fifty years he has given the Democratic party his stanch support, and he is an important factor in its ranks. As a soldier and private citizen, Col. Totton has always done what he believed to be his duty, and has not only made a success of his life work, but placed himself in a very enviable position in the esteem of his fellow townsmen.