BIO: Michael M. FISHBURN, Centre County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania: Including 
the Counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion: Containing 
Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens, Etc. 
Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1898.
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392  COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

  MICHAEL M. FISHBURN. Among the progressive and industrious farmers of 
Benner township, Centre county, the subject of this sketch occupies a 
prominent and honorable position. A son of Jacob and Mary Ann (Moyer) 
Fishburn, he was born in Dauphin county, Penn., in 1827, and in 1832 
was brought to Centre county, with whose interests he has since been 
identified. He is the second in order of birth in a family of five 
children, the others being Henry J., Jacob, Anna M. and William H.
  Philip Fishburn, the grandfather of Michael M., was a native of 
Pennsylvania. He served in the Revolutionary war, was a farmer of 
Dauphin county, where his death occurred about the year 1840. His son 
Jacob, our subject's father, was born in Dauphin county, and at his 
death, in 1889, had a farm of some 197 acres of land in Centre county. 
On coming to the latter county in 1832, he settled near where Michael 
M. now resides. He was a man of honor and integrity and a good citizen; 
a member of the Lutheran Church, and, in politics, first a Whig, then a 
Democrat. His wife died in 1883. Michael M. Fishburn had but meager 
educational advantages. He remained with his father until twenty-seven 
years of age, then went with an uncle, Felix Burkholder, who resided in 
Penn's Valley, with whom he learned the trade of miller, remaining one 
and a half years, and receiving for his services sixty-five dollars. He 
then returned home, and in connection with his brother worked the home 
farm for two years. He next moved to Jacksonville, in Walker township, 
and for three years rented a farm there and followed agriculture as an 
occupation. After the expiration of this time he went to College 
township, and for twelve years resided on a farm of 125 acres which he 
rented of Major Reynolds, and during that period he bought eighteen 
acres of the farm on which he now resides, since which he has added to 
it forty acres, making fifty-eight acres in all.
  In 1857, Mr. Fishburn was married to Catherine Rossman, who was born 
in Potter township, Penn's Valley, March 11, 1833, a daughter of 
Jonathan R. and Rebecca (Fie) Rossman, the former of whom, born in 
1815, died in 1866, and the latter, born in 1810, died in 1882, the 
parents of eleven children, namely: Catherine, Elizabeth, Sarah, May, 
Susan, Henry, John, Margaret, Michael, Calvin, and one that died in 
infancy. Our subject and his wife have had no children. He has been a 
lifelong Democrat, and takes an interest in political affairs. He is a 
member of the German Reformed Church, and his upright moral character 
and sterling worth have won him the confidence and high regard of all 
who know him.