George Mathiot, was born October 13, 1759 in Lancaster and enlisted November 18, 1776, in the Continental Army. During the Revolutionary War while riding through the village of Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland he first saw his wife Ruth, a Quaker. After the war he located at Elk Ridge Landing, Maryland, where he married Ruth on October 31, 1787. In 1796, George moved to Connellsville and would serve for years as street commissioner, on the town council and justice of the peace. George passed away on April 4th, 1840. Together, George and Ruth would have eleven children. The oldest Jacob and his next oldest brother Henry are the subjects of the following stories of Connellsville backgrounds. George and Ruth Mathiots oldest son Jacob Davies Mathiot was born in 1788 at Connellsville. In 1807, at the age of 19 Jacob received a commission of ensign in the Fayette-Westmoreland militia. By 1816 he would attain the rank of Colonel and keep the title of Colonel Jacob D. Mathiot for his entire life. He also began as a clerk, in 1811 at the age of 23, for Isaac Meason at his Mt. Vernon forge. Mr. Meason transferred him to his Union Forge by March of 1812 as manager. Jacob did so well there that Mr. Meason brought him back to the Mt. Vernon forge to be manager in September of 1813. Isaac Meason died in 1818 and Isaac Jr. took over his fathers enterprises. The same year Jacob was offered a partnership in the Ross Iron works of Fairfield Township and followed with partnering with Isaac Meason Jr. In 1830, he was appointed one of the commissioners who oversaw building a bridge over the Conemaugh River. He also served as a democrat in the Pennsylvania Legislature 1833-1845. He and attorney George Mulholland purchased Bear Cave in 1832, near Derry. When Isaac Jr. died in 1836, the partnership went to Jacob and one other partner. He was reported to be a shopkeeper, postmaster, and canal weighmaster in Westmoreland Co., Pennsylvania. In 1861, he was appointed a clerk at the U.S. Treasury Dept. in Washington, D.C. and worked there until shortly before his death on December 13th, 1865. Dr Henry Bernard Mathiot, second eldest son of George and Ruth Mathiot and was born at Connellsville, on August 30th, 1815. Dr H. B. Mathiot received a limited school education and while still a boy trudged forty miles on foot through the snow to engage as a clerk with his brother Jacob at Ross Iron Works. Subsequently, he read medicine with Dr Anderton Brown of Newark, Ohio, for three years (1837 to 1840) when he returned to Fayette county and began the practice of medicine at Smithfield, as an undergraduate, a common custom at that time in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in the class of 1852 and successfully practiced medicine at Smithfield ever after. On March 19, 1844, he married Miss Rebecca Ruth Brownfield. It was often said that no house in the community entertained so many persons, friends and strangers, as did Dr Mathiots. He was an earnest and persuasive public speaker and for over a quarter of a century his voice had been heard in advocacy of every moral, temperance and religious movement that had agitated the community in which he lived. He was ordained a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1872. Henry passed away February 24th, 1894 and was buried at Mount Moriah Baptist Cemetery in Smithfield, Fayette County.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 02:34:38 +0000
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