SAMUEL
MCCLURE,
agent and general manager of the Stewart Iron
Company, Limited, of
Sharon, Mercer county, is one of the veteran leaders in the founding,
management and development of the industrial and financial institutions of
the Shenango valley. He was born in Little Beaver township, Beaver county,
Pennsylvania, January 3, 1839, and is the eldest son of Joseph
and Nancy (Clark) McClure, of Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The father
was born in the parish of Convoy, county of Donegal, Ireland, in April,
1810, and was a son of Nathaniel and Catherine
(Noble) McClure, natives of the same place. In 1831 Nathaniel
and wife, with three sons, Joseph, John and Thomas,
emigrated to Little Beaver township, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, where
they settled on a farm and where the father resided until his death.
During the construction of the Beaver and Erie canal Joseph
McClure began working on that improvement in Beaver county and
while thus engaged learned the stone-cutter’s trade. He continued
working and contracting on the same public improvement until he arrived at
Clarksville, Mercer county. He there met and married
Miss Nancy, daughter of Samuel and Mary
Clark.
Samuel
Clark was born near the Lehigh river, in Northampton county,
Pennsylvania, January 17, 1770. Seven months after his father’s death,
in the latter part of 1771, his mother returned to Wallpack, Sussex
county, New Jersey, where she had been reared. Her people were Germans,
and little Samuel first learned to speak that language. By her industry
the mother supported her family in their infancy, all through the tedious
war of the Revolution, and was often subjected to much trouble and
annoyance (the Indians being on the north and west and the British army on
the south and east) and more than once she was forced to seek safety in
the fort. At the age of fourteen Samuel was
bound out to John Dimon, a carpenter and
wagonmaker, and served through seven years of drudgery. On April 18, 1792,
he married Mary Custer, by whom he had ten
children, as follows: William, born June 8,
1794, in Sussex county, New Jersey; Samuel,
born in New Jersey, August 13, 1796, died near Sharon; Catherine,
born in Jefferson county, Ohio, April 12, 1798, married James
Simonton; Abraham, born in Jefferson county, Ohio, May 21, 1800,
died in Clarksville in October, 1888; Mary, born
in Jefferson county, Ohio, March 10, 1802, married John
Conley; Sarah, born in Jefferson county, Ohio, April 11, 1804,
married John Gillespie; Susannah, deceased,
born in Pymatuning township, Mercer county, Pennsylvania, July 15, 1806,
married John Fruit; Jane, born in Mercer
county, January 8, 1811; Nancy, born in
Mercer county, September 6, 1813, and died April 17, 1890, the wife of Joseph
McClure, of Clarksville; and Jacob. Samuel
Clark, Sr., the father, died October 29, 1860, aged ninety years.
nine months and twelve days, and his widow, Mary
(Custer) Clark, died October 7, 1863. aged ninety-one years, eleven
months and twenty-three days. Her family gave to the world the brave
General Custer, who was killed by the Sioux Indians in June, 1876.
Soon after his
marriage Joseph McClure returned to the old
home in Beaver county, where he remained until 1840, when he sold the farm
and removed to Clarksville, which was the headquarters of a general
business, with branches at other points in Mercer county. His mother, with
his brothers, John and Thomas, afterward
removed to Girard, Pennsylvania, where John and the mother resided until
their decease, and where Thomas still lives. In 1846 Joseph
McClure, with his brother John, formed
a partnership with B. B. Vincent and David
Himrod, and, under the firm name of Vincent, Himrod & Co.,
erected the first blast furnace in Sharpsville, this county, and Joseph
located at that point. After a trial of several years, this venture
proving unsuccessful, he returned to Clarksville and resumed the
merchandise business in connection with farming and contracting until his
death.
To Joseph
and Nancy McClure were born ten children: Samuel,
Joseph N., Thomas, Catherine, Mary, Nancy, Sarah, John, Nathaniel and
Rebecca, all whom are living except Catherine,
who died July 22, 1883, John, who died March
8, 1892, and Joseph N., who died in May,
1898. Mr. McClure was a Whig until 1854, when the growth of Knownothingism
made him a Democrat, which he remained until the breaking out of the war ;
he then voted with the Republicans until 1863. when he again became a
Democrat, supporting the principles of that party until the time of his
death. He was a member of the United Presbyterian church, and was largely
connected with the growth and development of the Shenango valley for
nearly half a century.
Samuel
McClure received the usual common school education and then spent
several years at the Girard (Pennsylvania) Academy. He grew to manhood
under the parental roof, working on the farm and clerking in his
father’s store during boyhood, and in 1861 he began clerking in
Clarksville. In 1862 he entered the employ of James
Wood & Son, of Pittsburg, and was sent to Homewood Furnace,
Lawrence county, Pennsylvania, to take the management of the firm’s
store at that place, being transferred during the following year to
Wheatland as cashier and bookkeeper of its interests there. He filled
these positions, as well as those of superintendent and manager, until
1873, when the firm failed, and he then went to West Middlesex as manager
of a blast furnace at that place.
In January, 1874, Mr.
McClure came to Sharon to accept the position of superintendent of
the Stewart Iron Company, Limited. In October, 1889, he acquired an
interest and was elected one of the managers, as well as being general
manager of the iron business of this company in the Shenango valley and of
its coking interests at Uniontown, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, the plant
at the latter point being tinder his direction. Under Mr. McClure’s able
management the business of this firm has grown prosperous and stands
second to none in the valley. In 1886 he became associated with F.
H. Buhl and Daniel Eagan in the
organization of the Sharon Steel Casting
Company, of which he was elected
vice president. This company was later acquired by the American Steel
Casting Company, which in 1902 became a constituent company of the
American Steel Foundries. Mr. McClure is president of the Sharon Savings
and Trust Company and is also president of the Union Lime stone Company,
the Valley Connecting Railroad Company and the Shenango Machine Company.
Professionally he is a member of the American Institute of Mining
Engineers and of the British Iron and Steel Institute; fraternally, a
Mason, and, socially, a member of the Duquesne Club of Pittsburg and
numerous other organizations. Mr. McClure was initiated into Sharon Lodge
No. 250, A. F. & A. M., in 1865, and is one of its oldest members. He
also belongs to Norman Chapter No. 244,R. A. M.; Rebecca Commandery No.
50, K. T., of which he is past eminent commander.
On July 1, 1863, Mr.
McClure married Miss Augusta R. Dickson,
of Clarksville, to which union three daughters have been born, all living;
Mary A., who on August 30, 1883, married Charles
F. Phillips, assistant manager of the Stewart Iron Company, Sharon;
Anna D., who in October, 1895, married David
M. Forker; and Jennie, wife of Dr.
Clifford Marshall. Mr. McClure is a leading Republican and in 1884
was elected state senator for the Forty-seventh district and was the
choice of his county for renomination.
Twentieth Century
History of Mercer County, 1909,
pages 364-367.
