BIOGRAPHY: Anselum WEAKLAND, 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. 387-8
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Anselum WEAKLAND

ANSELUM WEAKLAND, one of the substantial citizens of Elder township, and a 
member of an old and distinguished family that came over with Lord Baltimore, is 
a son of Samuel and Margaret (McAteer) Weakland, and was born in Carroll 
township, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, March 21, 1833. His boyhood days were 
passed on his father's farm, and he received his education in the early common 
schools which succeeded the old subscription schools that had come down from 
pioneer days. Leaving school, he engaged in farming, which he has followed ever 
since. He has always resided on a farm, and in 1859 purchased his present farm 
of one hundred and thirty acres of land, which is well improved, highly 
productive and underlaid with coal.  Mr. Weakland is a general farmer, who has 
made his farm one of the best in the township where good farms are numerous. He 
is a man of standing and influence in his community, and possesses a well-
balanced mind, good judgment and a considerable amount of firmness. He is a 
member of the Catholic church, in which he has worshiped from boyhood. Mr. 
Weakland in his political, views has always been a democrat, and a strong 
advocate of Jeffersonian principles. He has served as constable and as school-
director of his township, and held various other local offices, but has neither 
sought nor desired such honors. He was elected as a director of the poor, and in 
1894 as a jury commissioner, both of which county offices he filled creditably.
     On May 8, 1859, Mr. Weakland married Matilda Luther, a daughter of John 
Luther, and a sister of ex-Sheriff Luther. To their union have been born ten 
children: Aaron, a livery proprietor at Patton; Walter, a merchant of Patton; 
Samuel, who is a partner in business with his brother Aaron; Amanda, wife of 
Michael el Ryan, of Patton; Emma, Malvina, Bennett, Ellen and Edward, who are 
still at home with their parents, and Matilda, now deceased.
     The Weakland family, is of distinguished English origin, and the founders 
of the American branch came over with the colony sent to Maryland by Cecil 
Calvert, second Lord Baltimore and settled near the site of the city of 
Baltimore. There is a family tradition that three Weakland brothers came with 
the first Maryland colony, and that one of them, like Rolfe in Virginia, married 
an Indian princess, and was the progenitor of the Pennsylvania Weakland family 
founded by John Weakland, Sr., who came to Loretto before the settlement of 
Father Gallitzin in Cambria county. John Weakland, Sr., was a Catholic and his 
dust reposes at Loretto. His three sons, Jephaniah, John and William, came with 
him; the two elder being married. John Weakland, in 1816, purchased a seven-
hundred-acre tract of land in what is now Elder township, and which was patented 
under the name of "Head's Sleeping Place." On this land he settled and reared 
his family. He was a member of the Catholic church, and married Catherine 
Jackson, of Hagerstown, Maryland, by whom he had nine children -- seven sons and 
two daughters: Mary, wife of Samuel McDermot; James, who owns farms in 
Clearfield. and Carroll townships; William, who was a farmer and stockdealer and 
owned the home farm; John, Peter and George, who followed farming in Carroll 
township, where they owned good farms; Amelia, who became deaf and dumb from 
sickness; Samuel; and Michael, who was a farm-owner in Carroll township.
     Samuel Weakland was born at Loretto, in 1805, and died on his farm in 
September, 1887, aged eighty-two years. One biographer said of him that, "he was 
one of the oldest and most respected citizens of the northern part of  the 
county." He was a Catholic, and resided in the Weakland settlement, near St. 
Joseph's church, in Carroll township. He married Margaret McAteer, whose people 
came from Ireland and settled near Loretto. Mr. and Mrs. Weakland reared a 
family of four children: Anselum, whose name appears at the head of this sketch; 
Catherine, wife of James Kirkpatrick, of Carroll township; Levi, a lumber-dealer 
of Cumberland, Maryland, and John, who is engaged in farming on the home farm in 
Carroll township.