Bios: DANIEL BITNER: Lawrence County, Pennsylvania

________________________________________________________________

  Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lawrence Co transcribers.
  Coordinated by Ed McClelland

  Copyright 2004.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  _____________________________________________________________

  Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
  Lawrence County Pennsylvania
  Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
  
  An html version with search engine may be found at 
  
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/lawrence/1897/
  
  _____________________________________________________________________

    DANIEL BITNER
    
    [p. 422] of No. 182 Croton Avenue, New Castle, is a blacksmith by trade,
  and is now employed in that capacity in the Lawrence Glass Works of the above
  city. Although very well along in years, his birth occurring Jan. 25, 1825, he
  is hale and hearty, and able to swing the sledge with as much vim and
  precision as many who are scores of years his junior. He is a son of Jacob,
  and Anna (Calhoun) Bitner. Jacob Bitner, a soldier of the War of 1812, whose
  birth occurred about 1797, was American born, but of German parentage, his
  mother having been born and reared in the old country.
    
    Jacob Bitner learned the blacksmith's trade, and in early life worked in
  Allegheny City, and Pittsburg. When our subject was about four years of age,
  Jacob Bitner came to Lawrence County; of his four boys and four girls, Daniel
  and his brother Barnet are the only survivors. As the older boys grew up, the
  father took them into his shop, desiring to teach them his trade, and keep
  them at home with him, but each in his turn became dissatisfied, and looked
  for other fields of labor. At last when all the older sons had left him, the
  father took Daniel into the shop at the early age of twelve years, just as
  soon as he was able to swing a sledge, and from that time on to the end of
  what might have been called his school-boy days he remained in his father's
  shop, and thought no more of going to school again. As he grew up he
  continued to work in his father's shop in Croton, and upon his father's death
  in 1847, he succeeded to the business, and many years thereafter found him
  laboring at his forge in Croton. Then for some eight or ten years he was
  engaged in the grocery business in the same village, and then returned to his
  trade. For the past fifteen years he has been employed in the shops of the
  Union Glass Co., and latterly of its successor, the Lawrence Glass Co.
    
    On Jan. 18, 1847, Mr. Bitner was married to Hester Baker, with whom he has
  lived fifty happy years, and gathered about him a contented family of
  children and grandchildren. Mrs. Bitner is a daughter of Jacob and Hannah
  (Rigby) Baker, the former a pensioner of the War of 1812. To Mr. Bitner and
  his wife have been given five children: Martha Jane, deceased; Jacob Baker, a
  blacksmith, now living in Fairmount, Ind.; Mary Ann, who married J. D. Harvey
  of New Castle; Roseltha M., who married E. E. Hartsuff of New Castle; and
  Hannah, who died in infancy. His religious attachments bind him to the M. E.
  Church. Politically, he is a Republican, and in respect to his social
  connections, he is an Odd Fellow, and a member of the A. O. U. W. He has a
  pleasant home in Croton, near the scene of his life-work, where he will spend
  his declining years, surrounded by his friends and descendants.