BIO: Col. Joseph TOTTON, Cumberland County, PA
  
  Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Joe Patterson
  OCRed by Judy Banja
  
  Copyright 2004.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
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  >From Biographical Annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,
  Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905, pages 135-136
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  COL. JOSEPH TOTTON. Among the well known and highly respected citizens 
  of Mechanicsburg, Pa., who has served his country in war and peace, Col. 
  Joseph Totton is deserving of special mention. He is now prominent in 
  business circles in that city as the proprietor of the Totton livery 
  stables, as well as the supporter of all measures calculated to prove of 
  benefit to his community. Col. Totton was born at Dillsburg, York 
  county, Pa., July 8, 1823, son of John and Hattie (McClure) Totton.
  John Totton was born in Portadown, Ireland. By trade he was a shoemaker. 
 
  
  136  CUMBERLAND COUNTY.
  
  He enlisted in the English army, and served nine years during the French 
  war, when he was brought to America, in 1812. He, however, refused to 
  fight the Americans, and became a citizen of the United States, settling 
  at Dillsburg, York county, where he married. His death occurred there in 
  1847, when he was sixty years of age. His wife, Hattie McClure, died in 
  1849, aged fifty-eight years, a consistent member of the Presbyterian 
  Church. Their family consisted of six children: Joseph, Margaret, David, 
  Margery, Rachel and Mary Ellen.
  
  Col. Joseph Totton acquired an education in a little school house in 
  Dillsburg, after which he learned the trade of shoemaker, and remained 
  in his native town until 1855, when he went to Shippensburg. In 1857 he 
  located in Mechanicsburg and embarked in a boot and shoe business, but 
  at the outbreak of the Rebellion he raised the Cumberland Guards, which 
  became Company H, 7th Pennsylvania Reserves, of which he was elected 
  captain, and subsequently became a lieutenant-colonel. He remained with 
  the regiment one year, when being compelled to resign on account of 
  impaired health, he received an honorable discharge. He came home, and 
  in a year opened his present livery stables. In 1873 he was elected 
  sheriff of Cumberland county, and resided in Carlisle three years, 
  during his term of office, since which time he has made Mechanicsburg 
  his home.
  
  On June 8, 1848, at Dillsburg, Mr. Totton was married to Miss Lydia 
  Wagner, born in East Berlin, Adams Co., Pa., daughter of Samuel and 
  Lydia (Oyler) Wagner, of whom the former, a blacksmith, was born in 
  Adams county, the latter in Hanover, York county. Mr. and Mrs. Totton 
  have had eleven children, nine of whom grew to maturity: David E., born 
  in Dillsburg, Oct. 30, 1849; James M., born in Monroe township, Sept. 
  25, 1851; George B., born in Dillsburg, and now a farmer in Silver 
  Spring township; Ellen, deceased, wife of Talbot Crane, 0f Cumberland 
  county; Annie, of Mechanicsburg; Maggie, with her parents; Joseph, Jr.; 
  John and Frank, who both assist their father; Samuel M. and Hattie, 
  deceased. Mrs. Totton is a member of the Presbyterian Church, in which 
  she is an active worker. Fraternally, Col. Totton is a member of 
  Mechanicsburg Lodge No. 215, I.O.O.F., and is the oldest member of that 
  organization in the town, having been connected with the lodge for 
  fifty-seven years. He is also a member of Carlisle Post No. 201, G.A.R. 
  Col. Totton is one of the prosperous business men of Mechanicsburg, and 
  few are better or more favorably known in this locality than he. For the 
  past fifty years he has given the Democratic party his stanch support, 
  and he is an important factor in its ranks. As a soldier and private 
  citizen, Col. Totton has always done what he believed to be his duty, 
  and has not only made a success of his life work, but placed himself in 
  a very enviable position in the esteem of his fellow townsmen.