Matthew S. Adams

REV. MATTHEW S. ADAMS is an active business man and a useful citizen of Parker City, who enjoys the respect and goodwill of his fellowmen. Rev. Matthew S. Adams is a prominent local minister in the Methodist Episcopal church. He was born near New Salem, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, May 23, 1820, and is a son of Rev. Alexander and Esther (Armantage) Adams. Rev. Alexander Adams was of English descent. He was born in Bedford county, in 1776, removed to Westmoreland county, where he remained until 1823, when he came to the mouth of Cowanshannock Creek (above Kittanning) and engaged in milling. He afterwards removed, about 1849, to Butler county, in which he died in September, 1859, aged eighty-three years. He was a local minister in the Methodist Episcopal church and lived an exemplary Christian life. He married Esther Armantage, who was a daughter of Benjamin Armantage, of Bedford county, and died in January, 1828, aged thirty-eight years. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and left, at her death, a family of ten children, of whom three are living: Matthew S. Adams, Alexander Adams and Sarah Milligan.

Matthew S. Adams was reared principally in Armstrong county, where he received his education in the rural schools of his boyhood days. In 1844 he removed to Fairview, Butler county, where in the same year he embarked in the foundry business. Six years later he engaged in the mercantile business and conducted both his foundry and store until 1854, when he went seven miles north to Fairview and purchased Maple furnace, which he operated up to the fall of 1865. His iron was of good quality and in much demand. He hauled it to Parker's Landing, on the Allegheny river, and from thence transported it on flat-boats to Pittsburgh. In connection with the furnace he had a large store. In 1868 he engaged in oil production at Pit Hole and Parker's Landing. He has continued these different lines of business successfully until the present time, and during several years of this period was one of the heaviest oil producers in Armstrong county. He came, in 1870, to Parker City, where he owns the Adams House and has considerable other property. He also owns a farm of five hundred acres in Butler county, on which is situated a flouring-mill.

June 3, 1841, Mr. Adams united in marriage with Nancy A. Scott, of Brady's Bend, Armstrong County, Pa. They have had eight children: Angie E., married to W. D. Blygh, of Grove City, who is engaged in the drug business; Mary E., married to W. J. Parker, who is engaged in the hotel business at Parker City; Edwin D., who is engaged in the hotel business at Parker City; Libbie E., wife of J. S. Foster, a druggist of Petrolia, Butler county, this State; James T., engaged in the oil business in Warren county; and Charles W., now in the oil business in Butler county, and Homer C. and Theodore L., who are both dead. Mrs. Adams was a member of the M. E. church for forty years and passed away October 10, 1889, aged sixty-nine years and one month.

In politics Rev. Matthew Adams is a republican. He commenced his career in life with nothing but good health, unbounded energy and inflexible honesty, and as success crowned his different business enterprises, he was enabled to wield a wider influence for morality and Christianity. He employed a large number of hands at different times in the iron business, but always saw that they were rightly dealt with in his iron-works. He is public-spirited and charitable, always willing to assist in any movement for the benefit of his city and ever ready to aid the sick and needy. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and has been a local minister in the Methodist Episcopal church for over thirty years. Rev. Matthew S. Adams, amid all the cares of various business enterprises, has preserved his reputation for honesty, integrity and morality, and has never neglected the cause of religion, but has valued it above all others.