Sullivan-Columbia-Lycoming County PA Archives Biographies.....Martin, Lewis 1821 - 
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  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
  Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 13, 2008, 5:05 pm
  
  Author: Thomas J. Ingham (1899)
  
  LEWIS MARTIN. - Both for the long duration of its settlement in Sullivan county
  and for the exercise of those sterling manly qualities which count for so much
  in the life of a community, the Martin family is entitled to much credit and
  enduring esteem. The subject of this sketch, now one of its honored pioneers, is
  by political affiliation a Democrat, but in the broader and deeper sense of the
  word, which means the fellowship and brotherhood of man, he has been
  pre-eminent. Not seeking to rise above his fellows, he has been content to play
  the part of a good citizen, possessing and practicing the golden virtues of
  honest industry and thrift. Endowed with clear vision and right thinking, he has
  set forth to the present and future generations an example truly worthy of
  emulation. Lewis Martin is the grandson of Roger Martin and a native of Wales,
  who toward the close of the last century left his native land and crossed the
  ocean, here to enjoy the political privileges and blessings of a young nation.
  He settled in Columbia county, Pennsylvania, where he married and became the
  father of six children, - four sons and two daughters. Of the sons, William
  Martin, the father of our subject, was the oldest.
  
      William was born in Columbia county, and there grew to manhood amid the wild
  surroundings which called forth the latent energies of the pioneers. He was
  married in his native county to Rebecca Gortner, daughter of Jacob Gortner. This
  marriage was blessed with five children, as follows: Sarah, who married William
  Ruser, of Colley township, Sullivan county, and is now deceased; Lewis, the
  subject of this sketch; John W., a farmer of Colley township; William, for many
  years a farmer and clothier of Fayette county, Iowa, and who died in 1897, aged
  seventy-two years; and Rebecca, who died in infancy. William Martin was a farmer
  and died in 1826, when our subject was but five years of age. The mother
  remarried, and by her second husband had two children.
  
      Lewis, our subject, was born in Columbia county, Pennsylvania, February 11,
  1821, and the scenes of his boyhood were passed amid the rugged hills of
  Lycoming county, now Sullivan county, and there were sufficient intervals in the
  hard, manual requirements of that day to give him a fair common-school
  education, such as the county afforded. In 1838, before he attained the age of
  twenty years, he had identified himself with the material interests of the
  county by taking up a tract of land of thirty-seven acres, and in 1840 he added
  to it seventy-three acres. It was all wild land and required many years of
  tireless application before it could be reclaimed to cultivation.
  
      Mr. Martin founded a home by uniting in marriage, April 26, 1843, in Cherry
  township, with Miss Susan Loretta Jackson, daughter of Samuel Jackson. She was
  born September 6, 1826. They had ten children as follows: John, now living on
  the old homestead; Ralph, a farmer of Albany township, Bradford county,
  Pennsylvania; Roland, residing on the old homestead; Hannah, a milliner of
  Elsie, Michigan; Freeman, a farmer of Bradford county, this state; Howard, a
  barber of Chicago, Illinois; Leonard, a dealer in agricultural implements in
  Eureka, Michigan; Libbie, a school-teacher who for many years has followed her
  life vocation in Sullivan county and also in Clinton county, Mich.; Emma, wife
  of Wesley Nye, of Clinton county, Michigan; and Anna, a milliner of Towanda,
  Pennsylvania.
  
      Since his marriage Mr. Martin has steadily pursued and overcome the task
  that lay before him, but not all his time has been devoted to his farming; for
  three years, commencing with 1851, he followed blacksmithing in Dushore, and at
  various other times he has engaged in other enterprises. He at one time owned a
  sawmill in Sullivan county, and for seven years he followed lumbering, but
  general farming has been his permanent calling. His present comfortable and
  attractive home he built in 1878, at a cost of three thousand, two hundred
  dollars. He still supervises the cultivation of the hundred acres of
  well-improved land which he now owns. He has filled various local offices,
  including those of supervisor and constable, and is now in the afternoon of life
  enjoying the rewards of his many well spent years, in the neighborhood which he
  has helped to beautify and among the many close friends of a life-time.
  
  
  Additional Comments:
  
  Extracted from: 
              
               History of Sullivan County Pennsylvania
                   by Thomas J. Ingham
              
       Compendium of Biography
              
                  The Lewis Publishing Company
            Chicago: 1899
  
  
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