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THOMAS BUSHMAN, senior partner in the planing mill firm of 
Bushman & Co., and a well known contractor and builder of 
Altoona, who served with distinction during the late civil 
war, is a son of William & Apalonia (Sanders) Bushman, and 
was born near Fairfield, Adams county, Pennsylvania, July 5, 
1840. The Bushmans are descended from an ancestry that came 
from Germany at an early day and settled in Pennsylvania. 
Henry Bushman (grandfather) was born in Adams county about 
1800, and died in that county at an advanced age. He grew to 
manhood among the early settlers of that section, becoming 
familiar with the hardships and privations incident to 
residence in a new country. He was a farmer by occupation, 
and passed a long and toilsome life in efforts to redeem his 
land from its natural state, and improve and cultivate his 
fertile fields. He married and reared a large family, among 
them being a son named William Bushman (father), who was 
also a native of Adams county, where he died March 10, 1892, 
in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He was a laborer by 
occupation, a stanch republican in politics, and a regular 
attendant and supporter of the Dunkard church. He married 
Apalonia Sanders, and to their union was born a family of 
eight children, the eldest of whom was Thomas, the subject 
of this sketch. Mrs. Bushman (mother) was born in Adams 
county in 1816, and died at her home there in 1891, after a 
life spanning three-quarters of a century. Her mother, the 
maternal grandmother of Thomas Bushman, is still living at 
Fairfield, Adams county, and now lacks only six years of 
rounding out a full century. The Sanders family is also 
among those early settled in the county of Adams, and are 
well known in that part of Pennsylvania. Thomas Bushman 
passed his boyhood in Adams county, this State; attended the 
public schools of his neighborhood, receiving a good 
practical education, and after leaving school learned the 
trade of carpenter. When the great civil war began he had 
just reached his majority, and moved by that spirit of 
patriotism which created vast armies almost in a day, he 
enlisted early in 1861 in Co. K, 101st Pennsylvania 
infantry, and served until Lee's surrender at Appomattox 
dispelled the last vestige of that dream of a new empire 
which had haunted the southern mind for the space of two 
generations. He was made a prisoner of war at Plymouth, 
North Carolina, and for eleven months suffered all the 
privations and horrors that rendered the Confederate prison 
pens a reproach to civilization. He was confined 
successively at Andersonville, Georgia; Florence, South 
Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; but was finally 
exchanged, and, with his regiment, mustered out of service 
at Harrisburg, this State, on the 5th of June, 1865. He 
entered the service as first duty sergeant, was promoted to 
be orderly sergeant, and later was made adjutant of the 
regiment. When the war was ended, however, and there was no 
longer a question as to whether one flag or two should kiss 
the northern breezes as they swept toward the gulf, Mr. 
Bushman returned to his home in the old Keystone State and 
applied himself to the useful occupation in which he was 
engaged when the bugle blast first summoned him to the 
tented field. For a time he worked as a carpenter, but soon 
began business as a contractor and builder at Arendtsville, 
Adams county, where he remained until 1873, when he removed 
to Altoona and became foreman in the planing mill of William 
Stoke. In this position he served for a period of six years, 
when he formed a partnership with Mr. Noffsker, under the 
style of Bushman, Noffsker & Co., and began operating a 
planing mill, contracting and building on his own account. 
This firm soon became prosperous and did a large business, 
which was continued until 1891, when Mr. Noffsker withdrew, 
and the firm name was changed to Bushman & Co. Mr. Bushman 
has always been the leading spirit in this enterprise, and 
the business is now quite extensive, giving employment to a 
large number of men, and controlling, as contractors, many 
of the substantial improvements recently made in this city. 
On November 27, 1865, Mr. Bushman was united in marriage to 
Sallie A. Lower, a daughter of Conrad Lower, of Adams 
county, this State. She is a very pleasant, intelligent 
lady, and quite popular among her wide circle of friends and 
acquaintances. Politically Mr. Bushman is a straight, 
old-fashioned republican, always giving a prompt and stead 
support to the principles and policy to his party, but 
taking no active part in the heated contests usually 
engineered by the politicians. He has been elected and 
served three years as school director, one year of which 
time he was secretary of the board. He was a member of the 
First Evangelical Lutheran church of Altoona, in which he is 
an elder, and also holds membership in Stephen C. Potts Post 
No. 62, Grand Army of the Republic, being one of its past 
commanders, and of Altoona Lodge, No. 132, Improved Order of 
Heptasophs; also past arkow of this association.  
Transcribed and submitted to the Blair USGenWeb Archives by 
Linda M. Shillinger  LindasTree@AOL.COM