BIO: James W. HUM, Beaver County, PA
    
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    BOOK OF BIOGRAPHIES.  This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches 
    of Leading Citizens of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.  Buffalo, N.Y., 
    Chicago, Ill.: Biographical Publishing Company, 1899, pp. 333-337.
    _________________________________________________________________ 
    
    JAMES W. HUM, deceased, an early resident of Beaver, Beaver county, Pa.,
  was for many long years a very prominent business man of Western
  Pennsylvania, conducting a large wholesale and retail lightning-rod house at
  No. 19 Market street, Pittsburg, Pa. He was born in Deerfield township,
  Columbiana county, Ohio, February 16, 1827, and was a son of David and Mary
  Ann (Hickox) Hum, and grandson of Jacob Hum.
    
    Jacob Hum, with a brother, early in life emigrated from their native
  country, Germany, and settled in Ohio, where he worked at his trade, that of
  a hatter. He established a business at Columbiana, Columbiana county, Ohio,
  but subsequently engaged in the same line of work at Salem, Ohio. He formed a
  matrimonial alliance with a lady of Scottish birth, and those of their
  children who grew to maturity were named as follows: David; John; Jacob;
  Adam; Margaret; and George. Mr. Hum lived to reach the advanced age of
  eighty-three years.
    
    David Hum, the father of James W., was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, and
  at Columbiana followed his father's business for some years. Later in life,
  however, he became a merchant of Lisbon, Ohio, where he died when eighty
  years old. His first wife's maiden name was Mary Ann Hickox, who died at
  thirty-six years of age, leaving the following offspring: Angelina (Hatcher);
  James Winnard, who married Margaret Briggs; Richard Winchester, an early
  settler of Lowellville, Ohio; Columbus C., who resides near Toledo, Ohio;
  Martha (Throne), of East Palestine, Ohio; and Elizabeth, deceased. By his
  second wife, Rebecca Thorn, Mr. Hum had one son, John. His third wife's given
  name was Esther, and his fourth union was with Mary Silverthorn.
    
    James W. Hum left home at the age of ten years to live with his uncle, John
  Hum. He remained with him until he reached the age of fourteen years, when he
  obtained employment on a steamboat on the Ohio River, as a cabin boy. Later
  he learned the trade of boat
    
    334  BOOK OF BIOGRAPHIES
    
  carpenter, a vocation for which he was naturally well qualified.
  Subsequently he established himself at Bridgewater, and displayed
  considerable genius by manufacturing fanning mills, by the means of which
  grain, then threshed by hand, could be cleaned. His business became very
  prosperous, and he employed a large number of hands, as his product was
  extensively used in Western Pennsylvania. The lightning rod business next
  claimed his attention, and he was one of the founders of the American
  Lightning Rod Company, of Philadelphia, in 1849. The western section of the
  United States was his exclusive territory, and he established a wholesale and
  retail store at No. 19 Market street, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Under
  successful management the business expanded, and, in 1882, he took his son,
  Edward Knox Hum, into partnership with him, and they continued together until
  1892, when the subject of this sketch retired from active labors. It was in
  1868 that he built the handsome residence in which his widow now lives, and
  he also owned considerable valuable realty in Bridgewater and Beaver at the
  time of his death, which occurred March 17, 1895. He was a man of high
  principles, a loving husband and a fond father, and his friends throughout
  the state were very numerous.
    
    James W. Hum formed a marital union with Margaret Brigs, a daughter of
  Henry and Mary (Westcoat) Briggs. Henry Briggs was born in Dighton, Mass.,
  and was a son of Matthew and Cecelia (Reed) Briggs, and a grandson of Matthew
  Briggs, a blacksmith by trade, who came to this country from England. Matthew,
  Jr., was born in Dighton, Mass., and was also a blacksmith, following that
  vocation all of his active days. By his first wife he had three children, as
  follows: Matthew; Elizabeth; and Deliverance. By a second marriage, with
  Cecelia Reed, he had five children, namely: Henry; Nancy; Mary; Joseph; and
  Cecelia. Henry Briggs, the father of our subject's wife, learned the trade of
  a blacksmith, and, in 1836, removed to Western Pennsylvania, locating in South
  Beaver township, Beaver county. He purchased a farm, and, in addition to
  general farming, was engaged at his trade all of his active life, but lived
  his last days in retirement, dying at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Hum, in
  the eighty-fourth year of his age. His wife survived him several years, and
  died at the remarkable age of eighty-nine years. She had made several trips
  to her native state, Massachusetts, and had returned from one of these trips
  but two months before her death. Their children were: Henry, who died young;
  Mary; Julia; William; Elizabeth; Margaret; and Spencer.
    
    Mr. and Mrs. James W. Hum were the parents of the following: Henry
  Thornton, now of Pike county, Ill., who first married Josephine Blake, by
  whom he had one child, Harry C., and second, married Elizabeth Hughes, by
  whom he had one child, Carl D.; Edward Knox, whose life is also recorded in
  this Book of Biographies; Mary Elizabeth, deceased, the wife of Frank
  Robinson, by whom she had one child, Lois; James Weston,
    
    BEAVER COUNTY  337
    
  a farmer of Columbiana county, Ohio, who married Matilda Hineman, and had
  the following children, - Edward K., Guy H., Mary A., Martha T., James W.,
  and Wayne A.; Fred Cook, deceased, who married Florence King, by whom he had
  a son, Forrest, deceased; Arthur Westcoat, an electrical engineer, of
  Bridgewater, who married Mary Doing, deceased; and Margaret Mott, the wife of
  Samuel P. Provost, a flour manufacturer and merchant, of Pittsburg.
  Politically, our subject was a Democrat, and was a public-spirited man. He
  was also a Mason, and was a charter member of St. James Lodge, F. & A. M., at
  Beaver.