BIO: John K. Hamilton, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

                Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                                by J. N. Tillard

             Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                        Scions of The House of HAMILTON

   JOHN K., in a Large Measure Inherits The Qualities Which Made His Father,
                        Jonathan, a Great Man in His Day

ALMOST a half century ago, one Sunday afternoon in the late spring-time, a group 
of farmers and laborers stood about the door-yard of the old Hamilton School 
House in Logan Township. The primary purpose of their assemblage was the annual 
reorganization of the Sabbath School that was maintained there during the 
summer, but they were just then engaged in a lugubrious discussion of the 
weather and crop prospects. Most of them were men well stricken in years, for 
their sons for the most part were reaping the harvest of death on the 
battlefields of the south. The prospect was not cheering. The newspapers and 
unfrequent letters from the absent told of defeats instead of victories, and on 
this May-day afternoon, a cold wind blew from a gray sky, and the fields lay 
brown and bleak. The planting season was at hand and almost gone, and between 
the scarcity of help and the adverse weather conditions, the outlook was 
anything but promising.  No wonder that these good, gray men felt depressed, and 
thought that the hand of fate was pressing heavily upon them.
  In every rural community there is some patriarch who bears to his neighbors 
the relation of "guide, philosopher and friend." Such a one now approached. So 
absorbed was the little group in the tale of their woes that they scarcely heard 
his quiet footfalls, as with Bible in hand he joined the gathering. Jonathan 
Hamilton, farmer, patriot and priest to his kind, stood in their midst. He had 
ills of his own. His first-born was carrying a musket in the armies of the 
nation and was soon to be the object of the father's search in the ranks of the 
dead in the Wilderness. His own broad acres were in as evil case as any of his 
neighbor's, for notwithstanding his intelligent methods and ceaseless industry, 
he was confronted, as they were, by adverse conditions that he could not 
control. But the courage that was inherent in his deep, strong and simple nature 
served him well.
  "The shallows, murmur while the deeps are dumb," and as he stood listening to 
the plaints of his neighbors, the rugged, placid face preserved its wonted calm 
and the kindly eyes looked out over the barren fields with a level gaze that saw 
far beyond the threatening omens of the time. He spoke no word until he was 
directly appealed to to corroborate some dismal prophesy of evil. A flash of 
inner sunshine illuminated his worn visage, and clear and strong came the 
response:
  "Seed time and harvest shall not fail so long as the world stands; it is 
written in the book. Let us go in;" and presently the venerable head was bowed, 
and those within the sound of his voice were made to feel that he was talking 
face to face in the council chambers of the Most High. The dignity of his 
attitude, the reverential confidence of his suppliant tones were those of a man 
addressing his familiar friend.
  And it came to pass as he said. The reaper's song was not absent in the 
harvest time and basket and store were replenished in due season. Not many of 
the boys from that school went wrong. Though they were probably no better and no 
worse than the boys of the average country community, the example and precept of 
this man and his contemporaries were strong and made for righteousness and good 
citizenship. Peter Empfield, John Kantner, "Judge" Hutchison, Oliver Hegarty, 
Joseph Lafferty, John Bateman, George Hartzell, Allan McGlathery, George 
Pottsgrove - men of that generation in that community - of different mould and 
temperament, not always agreeing in what seemed to them to be fundamental and 
vital truths, but all practicing the broad doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount. 
Aye verily, they were the salt of the earth.
  Those upon whom their garments fell, for the most part, wore them worthily. 
Now occupying the old Hamilton homestead, lives a worthy scion of the family. 
John K. Hamilton in a large measure inherits the qualities of his father, and 
sustains very much the same relations to the community, though it is very much 
more populous than in the last generation. Conditions are vastly changed. The 
little village of Altoona, that was one time several miles away, has stretched 
over the hills and valleys until the old farm house is being surrounded by a 
hustling suburb. The fertile fields are, for the most part, being cultivated 
with the skill and dilligence of the fathers, but the waste places have become 
valuable sites, and the wealth of the incumbent will be measured only by the 
growth of the city.
  But all these things have not altered the attitude of John Hamilton to his 
neighbors and school-day acquaintances. At school the boys christened him 
"Santa," probably for the reason that his seat-mate was always welcome to the 
biggest half of the never failing apple in the winter days when apples were not 
plenty. The writer knows whereof he speaks, for he was for sometime that seat-
mate. And he is "Santa" still, and "Santa" he has always remained. In the "straw 
party" of the autumn and the "sledding party" of mid-winter, it was usually his 
team that conveyed the merry youngsters of the community to the hospitable farm-
house, the literary society or the spelling bee at the distant school house. 
Though there were various other demands upon his time, as he was a prominent 
member of the choir and his sister, the organist at the First Presbyterian 
Church of Altoona, of which his father was elder and one of the founders, the 
rural community in which he lived always profited by the musical and other 
talent of himself and members of his family. There was scarcely a boy or girl in 
that community thirty years ago who was not a music reader, and the old organ in 
the school house, placed there largely by the enterprise and munificence of his 
father, Allan McGlathery and others, was in use most evenings of the week, and 
the young folks who assembled there were gathering a little of culture while 
enjoying pleasant social relations. It was he who financed and led the old Logan 
Valley Band, the members of which organization have crossed the divide, or 
scattered to the four corners of the country.
  In the restless, nervous, hustling life of this young country, there is not 
yet developed much pride of family. Large opportunities of development and 
progress have inhered to the individual because of these conditions. The 
ambitious worker has not been bound by caste or hampered by questions of 
gentility. There has been a wondrous freedom of individual action and every man 
has been measured by his own merits without any reference to his family 
connections, but after all there is in every community some family landmarks, 
whose intrinsic character, integrity and steadfastness have served as a beacon 
light and nucleus around which that community revolves, and the Hamilton's have 
in a large measure occupied that position in the history of the community in 
which for three or more generations they have lived. Those who gather today at 
the reunions of the schools of the neighborhood will with great unanimity grant 
that the Hamilton family, without ostentation or anything that resembled 
patronage or superciliousness, have been a source of helpfulness to their 
neighbors through all the years of the community life. In truth, the affection 
of the old schoolmates for John Hamilton and his brothers and sisters would be 
hard to measure. Most of those who gather about the old farm house today are 
drawn there largely by the influence of that affection and esteem. It is the 
load-stone that draws and the daystar that attracts. It is sincere and honest 
and real.
  In the mutation of human events, eternal change goes on. Those who will gather 
there today, will in all human probability never meet again. Not all of them; 
each succeeding year will witness new breaks in the ranks. This meeting of plain 
people have not among them any who have achieved great renown. They have simply 
borne the labor and heat of the day in commonplace occupations. According to 
their powers they may have wrought mightily, but in comparative obscurity, and 
their efforts have been swallowed up in the sum total of human accomplishment. 
But their hearts are warm toward all the world and to each other, and to all the 
welcome will be gladsome, though to some it may mean, hail and farewell.

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