BIO: Henry C. WEIGHT, Huntingdon County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley: 
Comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata and Perry, 
Pennsylvania, Containing Sketches of Prominent and Representative 
Citizens and Many of the Early Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. 
Runk & Co., 1897, pages 407-408.
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  HENRY C. WEIGHT, Three Springs, Huntingdon county, Pa., was born in 
Water Street, Huntingdon county, May 13, 1844, son of Henry and Hannah 
Weight. The ancestors of the Weight family, three brothers, came from 
Germany, and settled in Centre county, Pa. Henry Weight, grandfather of 
Henry C., settled in Woodcock valley while Huntingdon county was still 
included in and called Bedford. There he died about 1822. his children 
were five boys and three girls: John; David; Daniel; George; and Henry; 
Elizabeth (Mrs. Conrad Buck); Pauline (Mrs. Henry Garner); and one 
whose name is not known. Henry Weight, Jr., was born in Woodcock 
valley, July 7, 1811. His early advantages in the way of education were 
slender; he acquired almost all he knew of studies after he had become 
a man and gone into business. He learned the trade of a miller at the 
age of fourteen, and continued in the same business for forty-four 
years. Some time after his marriage Mr. Weight went to Water Street, 
and for many years conducted a mill for Mr. Isett. From Water Street he 
removed to McConnellstown, and worked there for two or three years; 
then to the mill at Raystown Branch, then to Broad Top, and later to 
Orbisonia, where he superintended a mill for fourteen consecutive 
years. In 1864 Mr. Weight bought a farm in Springfield township, 
Huntingdon county, which he cultivated until 1889, running mills at 
various times during the same period. In 1889 he sold the farm, and 
bought himself a home in Cromwell township, where he resided until the 
beginning of his last illness; he was then taken to the home of his 
daughter, Mrs. Chilcoat, where he died, January 25, 1896. His wife had 
long before preceded him to the grave, she died in 1884, at he age of 
seventy. Their children are: Samuel, real estate agent, at Pasadena, 
Cal.; Susan, widow of Robert Hooper, resides at Mapleton, Pa.; John, 
farmer in Kansas, whither he went from Missouri in 1896; Mary (Mrs. 
Chilcoat), resides in Cromwell township, Huntingdon county; Henry C.; 
George W., died in 1885, in Huntingdon, Pa.; Kate (Mrs. Silas 
Cutshall), of Springfield township; Elizabeth (Mrs. Robert Brown), of 
Shelby, Iowa; Zachariah, farmer, of Clay township; William, conductor 
on Pennsylvania Railroad, resides at Tyrone, Pa.; Jane (Mrs. Andrew 
Kneed), of Clay township; besides two girls and one boy who died in 
infancy. Mr. Weight, in his earlier days, was an old line Whig; later, 
he became a Republican.
  After receiving a common school education, Henry C. Weight, at the 
age of thirteen, entered his father's mill as apprentice. He enlisted, 
February 12, 1862, when not yet seventeen years old, in Company I, 
Twelfth Pennsylvania Reserves, and soon after joined his regiment at 
Arlington Heights, Va. His first engagement was at Mechanicsville, 
where his regiment held a prominent position. One the next day they 
fought at Gaines Hill, then at Sand Hill, and then at Charles City X 
roads, where Mr. Weight was made prisoner, and conveyed to Libby 
prison. He remained there forty-seven days, enduring great hardships; 
then he, with others, was exchanged, and rejoined his regiment at 
Harrisons Landing. His next engagement was the second battle of Bull 
Run; then South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg; at Gettysburg 
the regiment took its position on Round Top; it was in the battles of 
the Wilderness, and in front of Petersburg. With the fight at Bethesda 
church, the time of his regiment expired; that battle occurred before 
the engagement at Petersburg, and Mr. Weight re-enlisted in Company D, 
One Hundred and Ninetieth Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Mr. Weight 
was again captured at what was called the Yellow House, while they were 
on the skirmish line, after taking the Southside Railroad. He was again 
conveyed to Libby prison, August 19, 1864; a month later he was 
transferred to Belle Isle, and in October to Salisbury, N.C., where he 
remained until March 7, 1865. He was then paroled, and sent to 
Wilmington, N.C.; there he and others were exchanged, and went by boat 
to Annapolis, Md., from which point Mr. Weight was sent home on sick 
furlough. In the latter part of May he rejoined his regiment at 
Arlington Heights, Va., and on July 3, 1865, was discharged with the 
regiment at Harrisburg, Pa.
  In October, 1865, Mr. Weight resumed work at his trade, with Adam 
Heffner, at Shirleysburg, Pa. He continued in the same occupation until 
1880, when he was obliged to give it up on account of ill-health. After 
two or three years of rest, he made a beginning in the confectionery 
business at Three Springs. As the business improved, Mr. Weight 
enlarged his stock, adding a variety of branches; he now has for sale, 
besides confectionery, notions, drugs, boots and shoes. He is 
emphatically a self-made man, having worked his own way by diligence 
and faithfulness to duty, from a position of comparative poverty to one 
of ease and affluence. The same devotion which enabled him to leave his 
newly married wife, and cheerfully return to the hardships of war, has 
been carried into all pursuits, and has brought its own reward. Mr. 
Weight is a Republican of the "single standard" type. He is a member of 
the P.O.S. of A.
  Henry C. Weight was married in 1864, while at home on veteran 
furlough, to Martha J. Morgan, a descendant on the maternal side of 
Captain Cluggage, commander of the fort at Shirleysburg during colonial 
days. Their children are: Frank Ostra, killed on the Pennsylvania 
Railroad in 1892, at the age of twenty-five; Bertha; Maggie (Mrs. W. S. 
Johns), of Dublin township, Huntingdon county; Lorraine, married Ada 
Swope, resides at Three Springs; Clay D.; Mattie J.; Lorna (Mrs. 
Russell S. Myers), of Saltillo, Pa.; Berlin; Lucy, died in infancy; and 
Ernest, died aged nine years.