My Genealogy Hound

JAMES E. DOUGHERTY, editor of the Bryn Mawr Record, is a native of Lower Merion township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He was born December 5, 1862. His parents were Edward Dougherty, of Rathmullan, county Donegal, Ireland, and Annie McMullin, of county Derry, Ireland. At the age of five and a half years he was sent to the public school at Bryn Mawr. With the exception of two years, one of which he spent at the Radnor school near the old Baptist burying ground at Wayne, and one at Easttown school, then Cabbagetown, now Waterloo Mills, Chester county, he remained at Bryn Mawr until April, 1878, when he entered the Augustinian College of Villanova, in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, at which institution he graduated, June 30, 1880, as B. S. His graduation took place twenty-two days after he had entered the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as a clerk in the office of the auditor of passenger receipts. He remained in that department for a period of fourteen years and six months, resigning his position on November 17, 1894, to be postmaster at Haverford, Pennsylvania, having been appointed August 16, 1894, by President Cleveland. He served until August 16, 1902, when as a Democrat, he was removed by President Roosevelt. He then became associated with the Suburban Publishing Company at Wayne, Pennsylvania, acting as editor of the Bryn Mawr Record.

Politically, Mr. Dougherty is a Democrat, and he has always been an earnest advocate of its principles and policy. He has been county committeeman, and a delegate to several Democratic county conventions. Mr. Dougherty has been all his life a total abstainer from intoxicating beverages. He has the honor of having been the first member on the roll of the St. Thomas, at Villanova, Total Abstinence Society, which was organized January 14, 1877. In 1892 he was instrumental in organizing Our Lady of Good Counsel Total Abstinence Benevolent Society of Bryn Mawr, and in May, 1900, he organized the Ladies’ Society of the same parish. He has been a delegate to the Philadelphia Catholic Total Abstinence Union for a period of twenty-five successive years. He has also been a delegate to national conventions of the Total Abstinence Union of America from the Philadelphia Union of the Society.

Mr. Dougherty married, October 27, 1886, at Villanova, Pennsylvania, Mary Ann, daughter of Peter and Bridget (McGann) Rountree, of Haverford. The ceremony was performed by the late Rev. J. J. Blake, O. S. A. The couple have had nine children, four of them deceased, those who are living being Edward J., Agnes, Joseph, Mary and Frances.

Mr. Dougherty has performed all his duties, whether as postmaster or journalist, with fidelity and success. He is a useful and highly respected member of the community in which he has lived all his life.