BIOGRAPHY: Mark LAFFEY, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 400
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MARK LAFFEY, proprietor of the City Hotel, in the Fourteenth ward of the city of 
Johnstown, this county, is a son of James and Margaret (Munroe) Laffey, and was 
born May 18,1870.
     James Laffey (father) was born in county Galway, Ireland, in 1831, and has 
always remained in the land of his nativity, where he now lives a comparatively 
retired life. Of his family the following children left the paternal roof and 
emigrated to America: Patrick, a resident of Scranton, this State; John, of 
Youngstown, Ohio; Thomas, of Lorain, Ohio; Martin and Peter, all of the same 
place; and Michael and James, of Cambria city.
     Mark Laffey obtained a knowledge of the mere elements of an education in 
his native land, came to the United States at the age of fourteen years, and for 
a short time profited by attending the common schools of Cambria city, but early 
being forced to the necessity of making his own way, he took a position as 
bartender in Cambria city, holding such a position about three years. In 1892, 
having gained a sufficient knowledge of the business, he embarked in the hotel 
business in Minersville on his own account, and has since that time been 
actively engaged in pursuing that line of business, with such a measure of 
success as a strict attention to the same usually brings, and an affable and 
accommodating manner deserves.
     On February 3, 1891, Mr. Laffey and Mary Ellen Lynch were united in 
marriage, and their union has been blessed in the birth of one child, Catherine 
Clare.