BIO: David Hoerner, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2011.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
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                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

                             CHAPTER LVIII.

    SOUTH MIDDLETON TOWNSHIP AND BOROUGH OF MOUNT HOLLY SPRINGS.

553  SOUTH MIDDLETON TOWNSHIP.

  DAVID HOERNER, retired manufacturer, Hattou, was born in Dauphin 
County, Penn., May 24, 1811, the third born in the family of twelve 
children of John and Magdalena (Ebersole) Hoerner, natives of 
Pennsylvania, and of German origin, and grandson of Andrew Hoerner, a 
soldier in the Revolutionary war.  John Hoerner was a major in the war 
of 1812, and lived to the advanced age of ninety-one years.  Our 
subject was a major in the State militia, and had two sons, who lost 
their lives in the late Rebellion:  David, Jr., starved to death in 
Andersonville prison, and Thomas, killed in front of Petersburg.  David 
Hoerner, Sr., received his education in Dauphin County, Penn., and at 
the age of eighteen commenced to learn the manufacturing of woolen 
goods, which business he followed forty-five years.  In 1847 he bought 
the woolen mills in South Middleton Township, which he successfully 
operated until 1874, since when the business has been conducted by his 
son, Daniel B.  Our subject was married, in 1831, to Barbara Hoover, of 
German descent, and of the nine children born to this union the 
following named are living:  John H., the owner of 1,200 acres of land, 
a wealthy, influential merchant in London, Penn.; Mary E., wife of 
Samuel Shelly; Sue B., who is living with said David Hoerner, and 
William H., living in Central City, Col.; Barbara M., wife of J. K. 
Graybill; Magdalena, wife of Rev. John P. Smith, a Methodist minister, 
and Daniel B., a manufacturer of woolen goods.  Mr. Hoerner is a member 
of the Lutheran Church, Mrs. Hoerner of the United Brethren 
denomination.  He is owner of a woolen-mill and a farm of sixty acres, 
on which he resides in South Middleton Township.  In politics Mr. 
Hoerner is a Republican.  During the late war of the Rebellion, in 
1863, he went to Harrisburg to inform Gen. Smith that the rebel 
general, Fitzhugh Lee, was in this vicinity.  On his return he states 
that he found himself in the midst of the enemy, and saw Gen. Lee 
sitting on a fence resting, and that the General, when he saw him, 
said:  "Come, let us have a talk."  Mr. Hoerner accepted the 
invitation, climbed up on the fence, and for half an hour argued the 
political questions of the day, all the time with a pass from Gen. 
Smith in his pocket, which, if found, would have condemned him as a 
spy.  When he returned toward home three of the rebels accompanied him 
(as they said, to get something 

554  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:

to eat), but Mr. Hoerner threw them off the scent by stopping at a farm 
house three miles from home, and asking for a piece of bread and 
butter, and when they saw him beginning to eat they left; so, by 
shrewdness and courage, he escaped.