Biographical Sketch of Jacob F. KEPHART (1893); Chester County, PA

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris <jmcdmorris@comcast.net>.

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Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania,
comprising a historical sketch of the county," by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by
Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1893, pp.
233-4.

"JACOB F. KEPHART, whose business career spans half a century, and who has been
connected with the Schuylkill Valley Stove Company of Spring City since its
organization, is a son of John and Esther (Fox) Kephart, and was born in
Limerick township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1826.  His
paternal grandfather, Adam Kephart, was a native of Lehigh county, and in
addition to serving as a soldier in the revolutionary war, he furnished several
cavalry horses and a team for the use of the Continental army.  Some years
after peace was declared in 1783, he removed to Limerick township, Montgomery
county, where he followed farming until his death.  He married Susannah Shuman,
and to them were born four sons and one daughter.  The sons were Andrew, John,
Adam, and Christian, of whom Andrew and Adam served as soldiers in the war of
1812.  John Kephart, the second son, and father of Jacob F. Kephart, was born
in 1788, in Lehigh county, and settled in Limerick township, where he died
June 6, 1868, at four score years of age.  He learned the trade of stone-mason,
which he followed for nearly fifty years.  He was a democrat in politics and a
member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and married Esther Fox, who died
June 7, 1878, aged eighty years, and was a daughter of Jacob Fox, a native of
Berks, and a resident farmer of Montgomery county.  Mr. and Mrs. Kephart were
the parents of four children: Susanna, Jacob F., Enos, who married Maria
Walters, and Esther, widow of William B. Kugler, who resides at Pottstown,
this State.

"Jacob F. Kephart, was reared in his native township, received a practical
education in the schools of his neighborhood, and then learned the trade of
blacksmith, at which he worked until 1847.  In that year he was given charge
of the blacksmith shops at 'Yankee Dam,' on the canal three miles above
Spring City, which position he held until 1851, when he went to Reading,
where he was engaged in the manufacture of farming implements for two years.
he was then successively engaged in the same line of business at Lebanon
for three years.  At the end of that time, in 1865, he embarked in farming and
in the grain threshing machine business, which he followed until 1879, when
he sold his farm and resided at different places for ten years.  He then (1889)
became a member and director of the present Schuylkill Valley Stove Company, of
Spring City.  This company was organized in the spring of 1889, and purchased
its present plant, which had been built three years previous and run until that
time under the auspices of the Knights of Labor.  The plant covers a large
area, and its principal buildings are a four-story warehouse, an engine and
boiler house, a cleaning room, a two-story cupola house, and a molding room.
The company employs eighty-five skilled workmen, turns out annually over one
hundred thousand dollars' worth of stoves, and has a large patronage in nearly
every State in the Union.

"In political sentiment Mr. Kephart is a democrat, but in local politics
supports men and measures independent of party consideration.  He is a member
of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and has had many years of valuable and
successful experience in different manufacturing enterprises."