BIO: Newton Bort YOUNG, 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 811 & 812. _____________________________________________________________ NEWTON BORT YOUNG, a well to do citizen of Burnside township, where he is engaged in agriculture, was born on the old Young homestead in this township, December 22, 1862, a son of Thomas and Mary Ann (Thompson) Young. His paternal grandfather was John Young, of Center county. John Young was born in Center county in the year 1797. Hester (Moore) Young, his wife, was born in the same county, July 9, 1803; moved to Clearfield county in the year 1833. To that union were born seven children, namely: Archie, Thomas, Hester, John R., Elizabeth, Mary and Robert. John Young died in 1860 and Hester, his wife, in 1862. Elizabeth Young and Mary Young are the only surviving members of the family at this date. John R. Young and Robert were both soldiers in the Civil war. Thomas Young, who was born in Center county, came to Burnside township, Clearfield county, accompanied by his parents. He cleared a tract of land here and during the rest of his life was mainly occupied in lumbering. In politics a Democrat, he served in local office. His death took place in 1887 when he was fifty-six years of age. His wife, Mary Ann, was a daughter of Ebenezer and Jane (Chrispin) Thompson, both natives of Indiana county. She died in 1890 at the age of fifty-six. Of their children, there are now living in addition to our subject, two sons, namely: Matt C., who is engaged in the newspaper business in Chicago; and George M., a farmer residing in Burnside township. John died in infancy. Joseph Lane was drowned at McGee's on the Susquehanna river in the year 1889, when in his twenty-ninth year, while engaged in rafting. Newton Bort Young, who was the third born of his parents' children, attended school for a while in his boyhood. He then began industrial life, working in the woods at lumbering for his father, and afterwards worked out for others until 1889. He then bought the old Young homestead, where he has since resided, engaged in agriculture. Owing chiefly to the excellent springs in the vicinity, this place was formerly much used for camp meetings. Like his father, Mr. Young is a Democrat, and is now serving as township treasurer, which office he has held for five years. Mr. Young was married in 1890 to Margaret Weaver Byers, who was born on the old Byers homestead June 16, 1867. Her parents were Samuel and Elizabeth (Davis) Byers, the latter of whom died in 1902 at the age of seventy-six years, and the former in 1873 at the age of seventy-one. Mrs. Young's grandfather on the paternal side was John Byers. His father, also named John, came to Clearfield county from Huntingdon county in 1821, and bought over 400 acres of land near New Washington, this county (Clearfield). He was born at Valley Forge, near Philadelphia, in 1762, a place rendered historic by Washington's winter encampment fifteen years later. He died in 1862 having rounded out a full century of existence, and having lived to see the four principal wars in which this country has been engaged, the War of the Revolution, that of 1812, the Mexican war, and the commencement at least of the great Civil war. A son of this John Byers, Lemuel Byers, born February 12, 1809, married in 1838, Mrs. Stephenson at the home of her uncle George Atchison. In 1841 Lemuel Byers took his first raft of lumber down the river to Harrisburg, Pa., form which place he walked home in four days. John Byers, a brother of Lemuel, married in 1830, Sarah Weaver, a daughter of John and Ruth (Zimmerman) Weaver. He was one of the organizers of the Methodist Protestant church in 1829. His death took place in 1881. Sam, another son of John, settled near the old homestead. Another member of this family was George, of whom we have no special record. Ellen, a sister, married John Mahaffey and resided first at Burnside and later at Cherry Tree. During Washington's encampment at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78, the Byers homestead was occupied for a time by him. John Byers, Mrs. Young's grandfather, then a boy of fifteen years, was pressed into the service of the army to haul supplies across the Schuylkill river for the troops. Mr. and Mrs. Newton B. Young are the parents of four children, namely: Clifton A., now twenty years of age, who is engaged in teaching school; Lela Elizabeth, aged eighteen, residing at home; Joseph Cloyd, aged nine, and Margaret Byers, aged four years. The Young and Byers families have furnished some of the best citizenship to Clearfield county. Industrious, law abiding, neighborly, and generally prosperous, they are favorably regarded wherever known.