Northumberland-Schuylkill County PA Archives Biographies.....Harpel, Marcus Howard 1838 - 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 July 7, 2005, 7:17 pm Author: Biographical Publishing Co. DR. MARCUS HOWARD HARPEL, whose portrait appears on the preceding page, is a physician of Shamokin. with an extensive practice, and is one of the oldest and most successful homeopathic physicians of the Seventeenth Congressional District of Pennsylvania. He was born February 1, 1838, in Orwigsburg, county seat of Schuylkill County, Pa., and is a son of Rev. Mark and Martha Ann (Morgan) Harpel. He was reared in Philadelphia, Northampton and Lancaster counties, Pa., and received his early education in the district schools. His preparatory education was secured mainly through his own efforts. In 1861 he entered the State Normal School at Millersville, Pa., having obtained the means to defray his expenses by teaching in the public schools of Lancaster County. After graduating at the State Normal, being a young man of spirit and enterprise, he aspired to fit himself for a professional calling, and chose for his life-work the practice of medicine. He entered upon his preparatory work in the office of Dr. Joshua Baker, a prominent physician of Lancaster, Pa. After faithfully pursuing his studies he completed his preparatory course and entered the Homeopathic College of Philadelphia, graduating therefrom in 1867. After practicing his profession for a short time in Canton, Ohio, he located in Shamokin, Northumberland County, in the fall of the same year, September 25,' 1867. He has continued in the active practice of his profession for more than thirty-one years, making a specialty of diseases of women and children, of the digestive organs and diseases of the throat and chest, and has met with marked success. He has noted with interest the material progress of the town, and well remembers when a greater part of the site of prosperous Shamokin was nothing more than a swamp. Dr. Harpel is a man who has kept well abreast with the times in his profession, and his career has been that of a student not merely in becoming master of books but by observation and travel as well. His library is well stocked, not only with medical books but with many valuable works treating of scieiice, travels, literature and general information. He has traveled extensively in the United States and Canada and also throughout Europe, having made two trips abroad and visited most of the important countries and objects of interest. During his active professional career he has found time, in addition to keeping well versed in his profession, to master the German language. The Harpel family, of which Dr. Marcus Howard Harpel is a worthy scion, is, one that has been prominently identified with the professional history of Eastern Pennsylvania for about a century and a half. The founder of the family in America was John Jeremiah Harpel, a native of Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, who, desiring wider range for the exercise of his industry and talents, immigrated to America in 1750 and located in what was then known as Faulkner's Swamp, near the present borough of Pottstown, in Montgomery County, Pa. He occupied himself in cultivating his farm there and spent the remainder of his life in that locality. David Harpel, the grandfather of our subject, was born on that prominent homestead and was reared there. When a young man he went to Philadelphia and built a hotel at the junction of Fifth street and the old York road. He operated that hotel very successfully for many years, when, having accumulated a competency, he retired from active life and spent the remainder of his days with two of his sons, David and Jacob, who were prominent tailors of Philadelphia. Rev. Mark Harpel, our subject's father, was a man of more than ordinary linguistic powers, possessing an unusually complete knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, and German. He was born in Philadelphia, October 10, 1810. His early education was received in church schools, and when quite young he assisted his brother Jacob in conducting a private academy for boys. Having been designed for the ministry by his parents, he began the study of theology in 1826, under Rev. Mr. Waage, in Bucks County. Five years later he was commissioned as a licentiate of the Pennsylvania Synod; at its meeting in 1832 both he and his brother, Jeremiah, were ordained to the work of the Lutheran ministry. More than forty years of Mark Harpel's life were devoted to earnest, faithful work for the Master in the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. His first regular charge was Salem, N. J., where he remained until 1836, when he removed to Orwigsburg, Schuylkill County, Pa. There he met his future wife, Martha Ann Morgan, a daughter of Joseph Morgan, and in April, 1837, they were united in the holy bonds of matrimony. Subsequently he served congregations in the counties of Northampton, Berks and Lancaster, filling many of the principal pulpits. His active ministerial labors were brought to a close at Brickerville, Lancaster County, some twenty years ago, when he removed to the city of Reading. While residing there, in 1872, death entered his happy home and in the early springtime removed his daughter, Emma M., who had just reached the years of womanhood; and, again, when the late October winds were sighing their farewell to the dying year, his beloved wife passed to her final rest in the beautiful mansion above. The light and love of home were now gone, and in the spring of 1873 Rev. Harpel went to Philadelphia and made his home with his brother, David. Soon, however, he desired to be with his children, and the latter years of his life were spent in visiting them, making his home with his son, Dr. M. H. Harpel, of Shamokin. There he passed the closing days of a noble, useful life, and fell asleep in the early morning of November 16, 1892. He was laid to rest at the Charles Evans Cemetery, in the city of Reading. Nine children, five sons and four daughters, survived Rev. Mark Harpel and mourn the loss of a kind and affectionate father: Dr. Marcus Howard of Shamokin; Dr. E. Newton of Philadelphia, now deceased, who resided at the corner of Broad and Morris streets; Dr. Francis E. of Danville; Dr. George W. of Mount Carmel; Prof. William F., superintendent of the public schools of Shamokin, a sketch of whose life will be found elsewhere in this volume; Mrs. Amanda L. Cornish; Mary A.; Mrs. Flora V. Thomas of Philadelphia; and Mrs. Martha C. Studenroth of Lexington, Pa. On July 2, 1868, Dr. Marcus Howard Harpel was united in marriage with Mary A. Haas, and they are the parents of the following children: Edward Francis, a practicing physician of Shamokin; Flora L., who is at home, being actively engaged as secretary for her uncle, Prof. William F. Harpel, and who took a full course of medicine, studying under her father; William Luther, a graduate of Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery at Philadelphia; Frederick Theodore, who was a member of the 8th Reg., Pa. Vol. Inf., during the war between the United States and Spain, and received an honorable discharge November 10, 1898, and has resumed his studies in Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, from which he will graduate in the spring of 1900; and Howard Mark, a student of law in the college at Carlisle, Pa. Dr. Harpel also has two adopted children, Lily and Nellie Haas, children of his wife's brother. Our subject is a man of broad and liberal ideas, not bound by the edicts of any sect, clan, or party in social, political or religious matters, and is very popular. 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: 8.1 Kb