My Genealogy Hound

NATHAN F. REED, one of the well-known citizens of Lower Allen township, Cumberland county, who since 1889 has been engaged in business at New Cumberland, is one of the successful self-made men of his locality.

Mr. Reed was born Dec. 6, 1858, in Fairview township, York county, and attended school until the age of seventeen, working on his father’s farm during vacation. At the age of twenty-one he left home and came to New Cumberland, and was employed for nine years at the Pennsylvania Steel Works. In 1889 he embarked in a coal business in this place, and later added fertilizers, cement, tiling and sewer pipe. The business so established, by his energy and enterprise, has been continued until the present, and is now one of the leading concerns of the place.

James L. Reed, the father of Nathan F., was born in New Jersey, learned the shoe trade, and later came to York county, Pa. He married Margaret Parker, of York, York county, and after marriage located in Fairview township, where he engaged in farming until his death, in 1890, at the age of seventy-two years. His widow still survives, aged eighty years. In religious connection they belong to the United Brethren Church. In politics he was a Republican. The children of James L. Reed and his wife were; Emily Jane, who is Mrs. Henry Handshaw, of Dauphin county; Eliza, Mrs. John Holmes, of Harrisburg; Mary, Mrs. Abraham Simmers, of Harrisburg; Jane, deceased; Albert, a resident of Michigan; Nathan F., of this sketch; Leah, Mrs. John Walker, of Harrisburg, deceased; and William, who married Ella Bowen, a resident of York county. The maternal grandfather of this family, was a patriot soldier in 1776.

Nathan F. Reed was married at New Cumberland, to Elizabeth Smaling, daughter of Henry and Anne (Peters) Smaling, both of whom are deceased. Both Mr. and Mrs. Reed are valued members of the U. B. Church, in which he is a trustee. In politics he is identified with the Republican party, and he is now serving his second year as a member of the borough council. In 1900 he erected a beautiful home in this city, and he and wife are very hospitable entertainers.