Northumberland-Schuylkill County PA Archives Biographies.....Hanlon, William J. 1862 - living in 1899 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com June 29, 2005, 6:30 pm Author: Biographical Publishing Co. DR. WILLIAM J. HANLON, a successful and popular physician of Mount Carmel, whose portrait is presented on the preceding page, is another of the residents of Northumberland County who have worked their way upward and have won success and honor by their perseverance, ability and energy. One of a family of ten children, our subject, as an engine-wiper, at the age of ten years, began a career which has been active and full of variety. He was for a time a slate-picker, and graduated from the coal breaker to the railroad and worked his way upward to the dispatcher's office and, while working hard every day, studied medicine and crowned his labors by graduating from one of the leading colleges of this state with high honors and taking up the practice of the profession he had chosen for his life-work. A self-made man in every respect, Dr. Hanlon looks- back over his earlier struggles with much satisfaction and with the kindliest remembrances of his father who persistently urged him to go to school and to try to educate himself so as to be fitted to win success. Our subject is a son of Thomas and Margaret (McClellan) Hanlon and was born at Port Carbon, Schuylkill County, Pa., August 5, 1862. His father was a native of County Donegal, Ireland, where he was born in 1829. He came to the United States in 1847 and found employment as a driver on the old Lehigh Canal. Meeting some friends whom he had known theretofore he subsequently went to work as a laborer, unloading boats at Mauch Chunk. Later he secured employment as a brakeman on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, continuing in that occupation until the spring of 1851 when he caught the gold fever and decided to go to California. He got as far as Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pa., where something caused him to abandon his proposed journey to the Pacific Coast, and he secured work as a brakeman on the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, on which he worked for many years. He was a brakeman on the construction train when the line running from Pottsville to Frackville, Schuylkill County, was built. In 1871 he was given an engine, having by painstaking and diligent application to his duties won promotions gradually until he was thoroughly competent to run an engine, and was transferred in July, 1872, to Mahanoy Plane where he hauled coal trains until 1883. He was then given a regular passenger run, handling a train which ran between Mahanoy Plane and Shenandoah; he continued on that line until age made it advisable that he be given lighter work and he was placed in charge of a smaller engine which he ran until his death, February 20, 1897. Mr. Hanlon married Margaret McClellan, who was born March 29, 1841, and died March 25, 1897. Their family numbered ten children. For a brief period the subject of this review, William J. Hanlon, attended public schools at Mahanoy Plane and Port Carbon. When ten years old he went to work as an engine-wiper, then he was water-boy for the railroad trackmen for a year and a half, and next he picked slate in a breaker and did many odd jobs, going to school in winter. His father, while appreciating the boy's energy and desire to be earning something, constantly urged William to attend school, but the son kept at work, laboring for a time on a gravel train. He finally yielded to his father's solicitations and in the fall of 1879 resumed his studies, making excellent progress and attaining a high standing. He obtained a certificate as a teacher, but he preferred to work about the railroad and he greased pulleys for. a month on the Mahanoy plane. Next he took a clerkship in the station at Mahanoy Plane, working in that capacity from April, 1881, to December, 1883. In the meantime he had learned telegraphy and he was transferred to Paxinos, where he opened a new station for the Reading Railroad, remaining there until March 12, 1887, when he was sent back to Mahanoy Plane as timekeeper for the same road. He subsequently was stationed as a clerk at Shamokin Scales on the Philadelphia & Reading and as night operator on the Pennsylvania Railroad at Morris Junction, near Pottsville. After working at several places on the latter road, in December, 1888, our subject was promoted to the position of copier and operator in the office of the train dispatcher at Sunbury, where he remained until September, 1892. He had meanwhile taken up the study of medicine with Dr. Daniel W. Shindel of Sunbury and, resigning his position with the railroad, on October 1, 1892, he matriculated at the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia. He pursued his studies assiduously and between terms at college worked as an operator on the Philadelphia & Reading and the Pennsylvania roads, thus adding to the fund which he had saved for the purpose of going through, the college. He was graduated May 10, 1895, and removed to Philadelphia, but he soon abandoned the idea of practicing in that city owing to the large expenditures he would have been under while acquiring a practice. He located at Port Carbon, Schuylkill County, where he practiced his profession until April 29, 1896, when he removed to Mount Carmel where he now has a large and profitable general practice. On January 3, 1889, our subject was joined in wedlock to Mary E. Farley. Their home has been brightened by two children: Thomas F., born October 16, 1889; and William A., born September 4, 1896. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Book of Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District Published by Biographical Publishing Company of Chicago, Ill. and Buffalo, NY (1899) This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/pafiles/ File size: 6.1 Kb