BIOGRAPHY: Charles N. CROUSE, Cambria County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lynne Canterbury and Diann Olsen. Portions of this book were transcribed by Clark Creery, Martha Humenik, Betty Mirovich and Sharon Ringler. USGENWEB ARCHIVES (tm) NOTICE All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information are included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ ____________________________________________________________ From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 375-6 ____________________________________________________________ CHARLES N. CROUSE, proprietor of the Crouse Hotel, at South Fork, this county, is a son of Isaac Newton and Rebecca (Culison) Crouse, and was born in Baltimore, Maryand, April 7, 1856. The Crouse family is of German nativity and origin, but members of it emigrated to this country over a century ago, and became pioneers in the development of Carroll county, Maryland. George Crouse, grandfather of the gentleman whose name heads this record, was born in Germany, and when but a boy came to America with his parents prior to the Revolutionary war. They located in Carroll county, where George Crouse learned the trade of a blacksmith, which lie followed all his life. He died in Carroll county at the advanced age of ninety- four years. He was married to Miss Reimdosler, whose parents were also early pioneers of Carroll county. Isaac Newton Crouse, father, was the second child born in Carroll county, Maryland. He died in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1864. By trade he was a painter, but after following it several years he developed a taste for a business career, and engaged in the wholesale grocery and commission business in Baltimore. The firm of which he was a member, was known as Edwards & Crouse. They conducted an extensive and very successful business for many years, when failing health compelled Mr. Crouse to retire from active business. He was quite a prominent and influential member of the Episcopal church, and fraternally was a member of the Masonic Order, also of the Senior Order of American Mechanics. He married Miss Rebecca Culison, the mother of our subject. She was a descendant of one of the pioneers of Carroll county, Maryland. To this marriage four sons and five daughters were born: George, the general yard-master of the Northern Central railroad at Baltimore. He has been in the employ of that company for thirty years. James French, a farmer of Anne Arundel county, Maryland; William, deceased; Jennie, deceased, who was the wife of Samuel Crouse, also deceased; Charles N., Annie, the wife of John Wolf, assistant superintendent of the Canton elevators of Baltimore, Maryland, and Lizzie, who resides with her mother in Baltimore. Charles N. Crouse received his education in the common schools of Baltimore, and at the age of sixteen became a brakeman on the Northern Central railroad; he remained in this position for three years, and then worked one year for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. In 1878 he removed to Johnstown, this county, and entered the employ of the Cambria Iron company, and worked in the Bessemer department of their works until 1884. In the latter year he succeeded A. J. Skelley as proprietor of the hotel at South Fork, since which time he has followed the hotel business. He is a man of good business ability, pleasant and genial, and his hotel is conducted in a manner satisfactory to the traveling public. It is a three-story building, one hundred and sixty-seven feet front by one hundred and sixty-five feet deep, and contains twenty-eight rooms, fitted up with all the modern improvements and conveniences. In politics he is a staunch democrat, and in 1889 was appointed mercantile appraiser. He is a member of the South Fork Castle, No. 101, K. of P., of which he is chancellor commander. May 22, 1882, he married Miss Margaret Horner, a daughter of the late Joseph Horner, of Wilmore, this county, and their marriage has been blessed in the birth of two children -- Charles, deceased, and Mary.