Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Kline, John G. October 23, 1840 - ????
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Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 December 17, 2024, 5:29 pm

Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892.
Author: Samuel T. Wiley

JOHN G. KLINE, 
a member of the enterprising and successful contracting and building firm of
Kline, Parker, & Co., of Altoona, and who served in the pioneer corps of
General Thomas army at the great and decisive battle of Nashville, is a son
of William and Ann (Gurdner) Kline, and was born in York county,
Pennsylvania, October 23, 1840.  His paternal grandfather John, came from
Germany to the United States when a young man, and settled in York county,
where he followed farming until 1847, when he died at the advanced age of
eighty-five years.  He married, and his son, William Kline (father), was born
and reared amid the Bald Hills in York County, in which he died in 1849, when
in the forty-first year of his age.  He learned the trade of locksmith, and
carried on the locksmith and coffee mill manufacturing business at New
Market, in his native county, until his death.  He was a member of the United
Brethren church, and an old-line whig with abolition proclivities, and married
Ann Gurdner, a native of York County, and a member of the United Brethren
church.  They reared a family of six children, one son and five daughters. 
Mrs. Kline died in Philadelphia in 1865, at the age of fifty-one years.
   John G. Kline was only nine years of age at the death of his father, and was
then taken to Dauphin County, where he grew to manhood and received his
education in the early common schools of Pennsylvania.  Leaving school, he
went to Harrisburg, where he secured the contract for carrying the mails from
the post-office to the mail trains.  At the end of one year he surrendered his
contract, and spent three years in learning the trade of carpenter with
Updegroce & Jones of Harrisburg.  He then worked successively at the Eagle
works, of Harrisburg, on the canal department of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company, at Salem, Ohio, and Hollidaysburg, which he left in 1864 to join the
pioneer corps of General Thomas' army.  He was in the battles of Franklin and
Nashville, after which he returned home, and in thirteen days, on January 28,
1865, enlisted for three years, or during the war, in Co. D, 192d Pennsylvania
infantry.  He served until August 1865, when he was honorably discharged at
Harper's Ferry, and shortly afterwards went to Renova, Clinton county, where
he engaged for three years in contracting and building.  He then went to
Huntingdon, this State, at which place he was superintendent of the Cottage
planning mill for nine months.  At the end of that time he came to Altoona
and engaged in his present contracting, building and planning mill business.
   On July 3, 1863, John G. Kline married Martha Tompkins, daughter of George
Tompkins, of Hollidaysburg.  They have eight children, three sons and five
daughters:  Irene, Gertrude, Rachel, Mahala, George, John, Rosalinda, and
Earl.
   In politics Mr. Kline is a firm supporter of the Republican party and it
nominees, and has served as a member of the boards of health and trade of
Altoona.  He is a large stockholder in several building associations, owns
fourteen houses in the city, and has been a member for some time of the
National Mutual and Building association of New York city.  He is also
interested in coal and timberlands in Somerset county.  He is a member of the
firm of Kline, Parker & Co., and they do a large contracting building
business, besides operating a large planning mill, where they employ several
men.  They have built a large number of houses in Altoona, besides doing much
contracting and building elsewhere.  Mr. Kline is a practical and skilled
workman of wide experience in his line of business, in which he has always
rendered good satisfaction to his numerous patrons.  He has good facilities
for doing first-class work, of which he makes a specialty. Success in most
cases is the price of long persistent labor.  Results are not accomplished in
a few years, especially in an industry that has to build up to state or
prosperity from a very moderated beginning, such as Mr. Kline had when he
started in his present important line of business.  Not easily elated by
success, and never depressed by reverses, he has steadily and persistently
worked for over a decade in establishing his present flourishing enterprise.

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Tina Erb  mtkaiy3@aol.com

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