John M. Dight

REV. JOHN M. DIGHT, of Evans City, is a son of Richard W. and Matilda (Downs) Dight. His mother was a descendant of an old and prominent family that settled at an early date at Redbank, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, His parents removed to Mercer County, Pennsylvania, where John M. was born, May 30, 1843. His primary education was obtained at the old Stokley school house, two miles from the town of Mercer, on the Franklin Pike. He grew to manhood on his father's farm, following the usual avocations of a farmer's life. He taught school when nineteen years of age, as an introduction to an extensive experience in school work. When he was twenty-one years of age he removed with his parents to Sandy Lake township, where he lived until the age of twenty-four. In 1869 he entered Westminster College, at New Wilmington, Lawrence County, and subsequently attended Allegheny college, at Meadville, and graduated June 26, 1874. In the spring of 1875, Mr. Dight was elected county superintendent of schools of Mercer County, which office he filled for three years. He then entered the United Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Allegheny City, and graduated from that institution in 1880. He was at once called to his present charge, was ordained June 9, 1880, and has been the continuous pastor of his present charge, consisting of the United Presbyterian churches at Evans City, and Mount Pleasant, Allegheny county, during the past fourteen years. Mr. Dight was the originator of the Evans City Cemetery, and is president of the Evans City Natural Gas Company, which he reorganized and placed upon a paying basis. Politically, he is a Republican, and while not a Prohibitionist, he is a warm friend of the temperance cause. Mr. Dight was married August 24, 1875, to Martha, daughter of John Richey, of Sunville, Venango county, Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of four sons and one daughter, as follows: John C.; Herman H.; Howard W.; Alice, and Eugene K.  Mr. Dight early learned the useful lesson of self-dependence. He made his was through college and the theological seminary unaided, and his success in life has been the result of his own untiring efforts.