Sullivan-Bradford County PA Archives Biographies.....SYLVARA, Benjamin M. 1821 - 
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  Author: Thomas J. Ingham (1899)
  
      BENJAMIN M. SYLVARA. - The deserved reward of a well-spent life is an
  honored retirement from business, in which to enjoy the fruits of former toil.
  To-day, after a useful and beneficial career, Mr. Sylvara is quietly living at
  his pleasant home in Dushore, Pennsylvania, surrounded by the comforts that
  earnest labor has brought him. He is one of the most prominent men of Sullivan
  county.
  
      He was born at Spring Hill, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, July 7, 1821, a
  son of Don Emanuel Sylvara, who was born at Lisbon, Portugal, about 1790. He
  came to America when a lad of fifteen years, in 1805, to escape being impressed
  in the army, and was well supplied with money, but it was taken from him by the
  captain of the ship, who bound him out to pay his passage money. He soon escaped
  from his master, however, and went to Connecticut, where he found a friend in
  Joseph Nichols, a landlord of a hotel, with whom he remained for several years,
  later learning the furrier's trade and working for a time at it. In 1816 he came
  to Wyoming county, Pennsylvania, and soon afterward purchased a farm in
  Tuscarora township. Clearing a portion of it, he resided thereon and followed
  farming until 1839, when he traded it for property at Silvara, Bradford county,
  where he continued to engage in agricultural pursuits until his death, in March,
  1853. Prosperity crowned his efforts and he left to each of his children a farm.
  He married Miss Janette Marsh, and to them were born ten children, as follow:
  Joseph, a physician, now deceased; Benjamin M., of this review; Eliza A., wife
  of Robert Cooley; Theodore and Andrew J., both farmers of Bradford county; John
  T., deceased; Emily, wife of Charles Davidson; Lewis B., an invalid residing in
  Silvara; Louisa, who died in infancy; and Ebenezer L., a broker, of Perry,
  Michigan. For her second husband the mother married Benjamin Dexter, but they
  had no children by that union. She died in 1874.
  
      Benjamin M. Sylvara received a meager education in the public schools of his
  native place, and worked on the home farm until thirty years of age. During this
  time he learned the carpenter and joiner's trade. On leaving home he moved to a
  farm given him by his father and later to Laceyville, Pennsylvania, where he
  worked at his trade for a short time. He then went on the road peddling, and
  later opened a store, at Norconk's Corners, Bradford county, which he sold at
  the end of a year and returned to his farm. Soon afterward, however, he again
  went to Laceyville, where he purchased a store and conducted it for two years,
  returning to his farm at the end of that time.
  
     He next made his home in Towanda, where he worked in a hotel one year, and on
  the 1st of May, 1860, came to Dushore, where, in the spring of 1861, he became
  proprietor of the Dushore House, conducting that well known hostelry for three
  years. At the end of that time he opened a store and two years later bought a
  sawmill, gristmill and one hundred and forty acres of land. After operating the
  mills for a year, he purchased a large farm near Dushore and moved thereon,
  being engaged in tilling the soil until 1882, when he moved to his present
  residence in Dushore. He successfully engaged in the brokerage business until
  1891, when he retired from active business. When the First National Bank was
  organized in Dushore, in 1890, he became a stockholder and director, and in
  January, 1895, he was elected president, but retired a year later, owing to
  failing health. He has always been one of Sullivan county's most progressive and
  public-spirited citizens. Prior to 1860 Mr. Sylvara was a Democrat in politics,
  but since then has given an unwavering support to the men and measures of the
  Republican party. Always upright, honest, plain-spoken and truthful, he has made
  no enemies, and in his declining years enjoys the love and respect of all who
  know him.
  
      On the 1st of April, 1845, Mr. Sylvara married Miss Harriet L. Stone, a
  daughter of Calvin Stone, of Herrick, Pennsylvania, where she was born March 10,
  1821, and they have become the parents of four children: Lucretia A., born
  September 19, 1846, married James H. Hughes, of Olean, New York, November 2,
  1874, and they have two children: Lottie A. and Don E.; Edwin G., a merchant of
  Dushore, is mentioned below; Emily J., born October 7, 1852, was married July 3,
  1870, to J. Newton Martin, who died January 2, 1894, and the children born to
  them were Bayard T., born August 12, 1873; Linta V., born July 29, 1876; and
  Dudley H., who was born November 9, 1881, and died December 30, 1883. Mrs.
  Martin resides with her parents. Ellen L., born May 13, 1855, died August 16,
  the same year.
  
  
  Additional Comments:
    Additional Comments:
      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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