BIO:  Hanson P. MARK, Franklin Township, Adams County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 408-409

HANSON P. MARK, undertaker, Arendtsville, was born in Baltimore, in 1853, a son 
of Nicholas and Christian (Beamer) Mark, both of whom were born in Adams County.  
The father kept the first general store in Arendtsville when there were but two 
houses in the place.  During the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Mark, in 
Adams County, three children were born and two in Maryland.  Our subject is the 
only survivor on both sides of a family who were among the early settlers.  His 
grandfather, Mark, donated the site for Mark’s German Reformed Church on the 
Baltimore Pike near Gettysburg, where he owned a farm and kept a hotel, known as 
“Mark’s Tavern.”  When Hanson P. was fifteen years of age he was employed as a 
clerk by Daniel Miller & Co., of Baltimore, wholesale dry goods merchants, with 
whom he remained five years, and obtained a practical idea of business.  Close 
application, however, impaired his health, and he took a trip to Europe to 
recuperate.  Six months later he returned to his former position and remained 
one year, when his physicians advised him to reside in the country.  Twelve 
years ago he came to Arendtsville, and in 1882 purchased the good-will of the 
undertaking establishment of ex-Sheriff Jacob H. Plank.  Mr. Mark is a graduate 
of the Cincinnati School of Embalming, and was also a matriculant in other 
schools of like character.  He was the first professional embalmer in Adams 
County, and does a general practice in the county, frequently assisting 
elsewhere.  He is still unmarried and is heir to the patrimony which was left by 
his parents.  Nicholas, his father, was a man widely known, not only in Adams 
County, but throughout this State and Maryland, and was one of the wholesale 
firm of Stonebumer, Mark & Miller, grocers, of Baltimore.  Our subject is a 
charter member of Good Samaritan Chapter, No. 266, R. A. M., of Gettysburg, and 
is also one of the deputy postmasters of his village.  In connection with the 
undertaking business he carries on the furniture and upholstering trade, the 
only place of its kind in Arendtsville.  He was one of the first members of the 
Funeral Directors’ Association, of Pennsylvania, organized May 23, 1883.