BIO: Joseph Emery GEARHART, 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 343-345. _____________________________________________________________ J. E. GEARHART, a progressive, enterprising and representative business man of Clearfield, Pa., manager of the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company and of the Keystone Vacuum Cleaner, is a member of one of the old settled families of the county. His great grandfather, John Gearhart, emigrated from Germany about the middle of the seventeenth century. He served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, afterward settled at Buffalo Run, Centre Co., Pa. He married Miss Catharine Gray, who lived to the age of 97 years. To John and Catharine were born ten children, whose names were as follows, - Jacob, John, Adam, Christ, Elias, Peter, Susanna, Eve, Betsey and Catharine. These have all died long ago. John Gearhart, the second in order and grandfather of J. E. Gearhart, was born in 1789. He married Miss Lydia Shivery. He served in the War of 1812 and was there when his eldest son David was born. He moved to Clearfield County in 1820. He died in 1871 having lived to the age of 82, and his wife Lydia died at the age of 90 within a few days. To John and Lydia Gearhart were born eleven children, one dying in infancy, the other ten living to a ripe age, whose names were as follows, - David, Sarah, Catharine, who is yet living at the advanced age of 95, John S. the father of J. E. Gearhart, Susanna, Andrew, Jane, Enoch, Hannah, and Jacob, who is yet living. John S. Gearhart was born April 20th, 1818, on his father's farm near Philipsburg, Clearfield Co. He also was an agriculturist and spent the greater part of his life on his farm situated in Boggs Township, two miles northwest of Blue Ball, in Clearfield County, where his death occurred Mar. 26, 1903, at the age of eighty-four years. He was twice married, first to Lydia Showalter, whose death occurred July 3, 1850, when their youngest son, J. E. Gearhart, was fifteen months old. J. E. Gearhart was born April 22, 1849. There were three other children born to this union, namely: William, who was a gallant soldier in the Civil War, a member of Co. E, 45th Pa. Vol. Inf., and who died of starvation in the Confederate prison at Salisbury, N. C., December 10, 1864; Ellis, who died at the age of twenty-one years; and Lloyd, who is a resident of Clearfield. The second marriage of John S. Gearhart was to Elizabeth Smith, whose death preceded that of her husband by four years, she dying Feb. 14, 1898. Eight children were born to this marriage, namely: George S., who lives in Clearfield; John W., who owns the home farm in Boggs Township; A. Clark, who lives in Blair County; Samuel, whose business is carried on at Clearfield; Lydia J., who is the wife of Charles Rickets, of Altoona; James, who is a resident of Braddock, Pa.; Charles, who died when seventeen years old; and Lewis, who lives at Pittsburg, Pa. Joseph Emery Gearhart grew to manhood on the home farm and obtained his education in the country schools. After he reached manhood he went to work for the lumber firm of Hoover, Hughes & Co., at Bellefonte, Pa., with operations near Philipsburg, and remained with them for nine years, and during that time shipped the most of the lumber that was used in the erection of the buildings for the great Centennial Exposition. From youth Mr. Gearhart has been more or less interested in mechanics and has invented many devices and utensils of practical use, some of which having been patented, are now manufactured in large numbers. He worked on a knitting machine until he perfected every part of it and received a patent and in 1889 opened a small shop at Blue Ball for its manufacture. The machine was so well received that by 1890 the business had outgrown his quarters at Blue Ball and he then moved to Clearfield and erected his present plant on Nichols Street, and also a factory in Canada. Under the name of the Gearhart Family Knitter, with ribbing attachment which produces seamless hosiery, Mr. Gearhart's invention is sold in all countries and with its attachments has been patented in the United States and in thirteen foreign countries. In connection with knitting machines, Mr. Gearhart manufactures and has on the market, The Keystone Vacuum Cleaner, and this invention promises to equal his others in popularity. Mr. Gearhart is a natural mechanic but he attributes a measure of his success to the instruction he received from his father-in-law, the late John Middleton, who was an expert machinist and gunsmith as his father before him had been, the latter manufacturing guns during the Revolutionary War for the Patriot army. Mr. Gearhart was married July 6, 1871, to Miss May E. Middleton, a daughter of John Middleton, who came to Clearfield from Cambria County. Eight children were born to Mr. And Mrs. Gearhart, namely: Sophia, who is the wife of James Gleason, a leading member of the Clearfield bar, residing at Du Bois, and they have one son, James Joseph; Leonard A.; Ada B., who married Dr. George R. Irwin, of Clearfield and they have four children - Robert, Dorothy, George and Joseph; John R., who resides in Clearfield, married Blanche Cardon and they have one son, William; Edna, who married B. R. Freer of Chicago and they have one child, Majorie; Jessie P., who is the wife of George A. Cardon, of Pittsburg; May, who married J. Emmett Harder, of Clearfield and they have one son, John Emmett; and Emery J., who is connected with an advertising house, at Chicago, Ill. Mr. And Mrs. Gearhart are members of the M. E. Church in the work of which he has been very active for years.