BIO: Austin BEATTY, Clearfield County, PA
 
Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja & Sally

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/

NOTE: Use this web address to access other bios:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/1picts/swoope/swoope.htm
_____________________________________________________________

From Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania,
and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr.,
Chicago: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911, pages 721 & 722.
_____________________________________________________________ 

  AUSTIN BEATTY, one of the best known residents of Bell township, where he has 
lived many years, having settled on his present farm when twenty-one years of 
age, was born October 19, 1844, in Indiana county, Pa., and is a son of James O. 
and Christianna (Miller) Beatty.
  James O. Beatty was born in 1819, in the old Beatty homestead in Indiana 
county, where his parents, Joseph and Catherine (Orr) Beatty, had located when 
they came from Ireland.  In 1851 he came to Bell township, settling on the old 
Samuel McGee farm, which he partly cleared and lived on until 1860, when he 
moved to Chest Falls, where he resided for seven years.  From there he moved to 
the present Beatty farm and during the remainder of his life was engaged in 
farming and lumbering.  His death occurred September 25, 1891.  He was a member 
of the Methodist Protestant church.  In politics he was a Democrat and on 
numerous occasions was elected to office.  He married Christianna Miller, who 
was born in October, 1819, a daughter of John and Catherine (McLaren) Miller.  
Three children of James O. Beatty and wife still survive, namely:  Austin; 
Foster, who is a farmer in Bell township; and Huston, who lives in Clarion 
county, Pa.
  Austin Beatty was not more than twelve years of age when he became his 
father's chief helper on the homestead and he assisted his parent until he was 
twenty-one years old, when he came to the farm he has occupied ever since.  He 
was one of the first settlers in this section of the township, north of McGee's 
Mills, and built the first log cabin.  He has followed general farming and 
lumbering since twenty-one years of age and has spent almost all his life here, 
his longest period of absence being when he served in the Civil war.  He 
enlisted in 1864 in Co. H, 58th Pa. Vol. Inf., and was mustered out near 
Richmond, Va., where he had been mainly detailed on picket duty, following the 
surrender of Gen. Lee.  He then returned home and engaged in saw milling and 
farming.  He has long been recognized as one of the representative men of his 
township and his judgment is consulted and his opinion is asked in all public 
matters in his section.  He is a Democrat in politics and has served many terms 
as a school director.
  On October 5, 1865, Mr. Beatty was married to Miss Rachel Young, who was born 
in Clarion county, Pa., in 1842, a daughter of Joseph and Mary (Hawk) Young, the 
former of whom died in 1856 and the latter in 1851.  They were natives of Butler 
county, Pa.  Mrs. Beatty has one brother, Joseph Young, who lives in Indiana 
county.  Mr. and Mrs. Beatty have had the following children:  Clark, who is a 
farmer, married Letha Baker, and they have six children; Annis D., who is the 
wife of C. Flory, who works in the tannery at Mahaffey, and they six children; 
Willis, who lives at Newtonburg, Pa., married Elizabeth Stigers, and they have 
five children; John, who lives near Clearfield, married Myrtle Coleman, and they 
have five children; and George, Mary and Ward, all three of whom are deceased.  
Mr. Beatty is a leading member of the Methodist Protestant church in Bell 
township and is one of the church trustees.