Westmoreland County PA Archives Biographies.....Gorgas, Samuel L.

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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 13, 2018, 8:24 pm

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SAMUEL L. GORGAS, a leading justice of the peace and one of the best business
men of Derry township, is a son of William and Ann (Nihell) Gorgas, and was born
in Mt. Pleasant township, Westmoreland county, Pa. The Gorgas family is
descended from three brothers who came from Holland and settled in Philadelphia
in the early part of the last century. One returned to Holland, and one of two
remaining was Samuel Gorgas, whose silver seal, with his initials and the emblem
of two doves holding an olive branch engraved upon it, is now in the possession
of the subject of this sketch. A lineal descendant of Samuel Gorgas was Samuel
Gorgas, Jr. (grandfather), who was born in eastern Pennsylvania, and came in
1810 to Westmoreland county, where he settled in Mt. Pleasant township. He was a
farmer and fur-dresser and died in 1828. William Gorgas (lather) was born at
York, Pa., about 1788 and located at Greensburg in 1810. He removed to Mt.
Pleasant in 1812, and in 1835 returned to Greensburg where he died May 30, 1845.
He was a clock and watchmaker and jeweler by trade, and perhaps over one hundred
clocks which he made are in the county today. He was appointed clerk of courts
in 1838 by Gov. Porter, served one year (the clerk’s office being merged in the
prothonotary’s office), and in 1844 was appointed by the commissioners as county
treasurer, in which capacity he was serving at the time of his death. His wife
was Ann Nihell, who bore him six sons and three daughters of whom two sons and
the three daughters are living: Joseph R., of Madison, Ind.; Lucinda, wife of
Dr. John Murray of Bridgewater, Pa.; Julia A., widow of Lucian B. Turney,
Greensburg; Cordelia F., wife of Hail Clark of Saltsburg, Pa.; and Samuel L.
Mrs. Gorgas was a daughter of Lawrence Nihell, who was a Revolutionary soldier,
and with his brother Ignatius were the only children of Lawrence Nihell, Sr.,
who was a sea merchant of Philadelphia and died in Limerick, Ireland, where he
had gone for the protection of his vessels during the Revolutionary war.

   Samuel L. Gorgas attended school at Mt. Pleasant and Greensburg. In January,
1839, he assisted his father in the clerk’s office, and from 1840 to June, 1846,
he was a clerk in the prothonotary’s office. In the year 1847 he removed to
Johnstown, Pa., where he remained until 1859, when he removed to his present
farm which he had purchased and upon which he had erected a good house in 1858.

   On January 12, 1844, he married. His son Murtay has been receiving teller of
the Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia since 1876; Minerva J.,
wife of B. M. Smiley, of Carlisle; Ferdinand S., a dental surgeon of Derry; and
Mary A., who is the wife of Dr. W. K. Young of Pittsburg, Pa.

   In politics Mr. Gorgas is a stanch democrat and has been serving as justice
ol the peace since 1882. He is a man of good business ability, does a general
collecting business, and has been constantly called upon for years to write
wills, deeds, mortgages and articles of agreement.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from
Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
Compiled and Published by John M. Gresham & Co.
Samuel T. Wiley, Chief Assistant
1890


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