Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Dern, Henry C. March 9, 1830 - ???? ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 December 21, 2024, 9:27 am Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892. Author: Samuel T. Wiley HENRY C. DERN, senior partner in the firm of Dern & Pitcairn, proprietors of the daily and weekly Tribune, at Altoona, was born at Double Pipe Creek, Carroll County, Maryland, March 9, 1830, and his parents were Isaac and Susan (Koons) Dern. The Derns are of German descent, and have long been residents of Maryland. The father of Henry C. Dern was born in 1787. He learned the allied trades of cooper, carpenter and cabinet maker, and followed one or the other of these occupations most of his life. He served in the war of 1812, and was an ardent whig in politics, and a great admirer of the peerless whig leader, Henry Clay (for whom he named his won, the subject of this sketch). He was elected and served for many years as justice of the peace in Carroll County, and during the civil war was an enthusiastic friend of the Union cause. He died at Middleburg, Carroll county, Maryland, March 9, 1862, on his seventy-fifth birthday. During most of his life he was an active, influential member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and married Susan Koons, a native of Carroll County, by whom he had a family of six children. She was born in 1805, was a faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and died in 1839, at the early age of thirty-four years. Henry Clay Dern was reared principally at Middleburg, Carroll County, Maryland, where he received a limited education in the schools of that day, frequently working during the summer months in his father's cooper shop. His youthful mind was early drawn toward the "art preservative of arts," and in his seventeenth year he left home and went to Westminster, the county seat of Carroll County, where he became an apprentice in the office of the Carroll County Democrat, a weekly paper, owned and edited at that time by Joseph M. Parke and J. T. H. Bringman. In that office he remained until he had acquired a pretty thorough knowledge of the printing business, when he removed to New Bloomfield, Perry County, Pennsylvania, and was for two years employed in the office of the Perry County Freeman. He afterward worked at his trade in the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore for some time, and in the fall of 1855 went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he secured a position in the composing room of the Cincinnati Commercial, upon which Murat Halsted was then a reporter. In less than a year Mr. Dern returned to Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, where he was married, and where he continued to live until May, 1858, when he removed to Altoona, this county, and purchased William M. Allison's half interest in the Altoona Tribune, the other half of the paper being owned by Ephraim B. McCrum: Under the firm name of McCrum & Dern these gentlemen continued the publication of that journal for a period of eighteen years, when, on January 20, 1876, Mr. McCrum retired, and Mr. Dern associated his nephew, Dr. Hugh Pitcairn, with himself in the publication of the Tribune. The style of the firm was then changed to Dern & Pitcairn, and has so remained to the present time. Doctor Pitcairn was at that time a resident of Altoona, but is now a practicing physician in the city of Harrisburg, so that the editorial and business management of the paper devolves upon Mr. Dern. On April 24, 1873, McCrum & Dern issued the first number of the Daily Tribune, which, after an existence of two years, was discontinued until January 28, 1878, when it was revived by Dern & Pitcairn, and has ever since appeared regularly. The weekly edition is still continued, is independent in politics, and has a circulation of two thousand copies; while the daily is a republican newspaper, with a circulation of nearly four thousand. Some years ago the proprietors erected a substantial three-story brick building on Twelfth Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, which was especially designed for a printing house, and has ever since been the home of the daily and weekly Tribune. On August 14, 1856, Mr. Dern was wedded to Miss Rebecca Witherow, a daughter of John Witherow, of Perry County, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Dern has been born a family of nine children, six of whom are living, one son and five daughters: Annie L., who married W. E. Blanchard, of Altoona; Carrie E., wedded to William W. Murray, also of that city; Emma R., who married Joseph Ritchey, of the same place; Nellie, the wife of Frank Delo, who is also a resident of Altoona; Mary W. and Harry C., the latter two living at home with their parents. Politically Mr. Dern has been a republican since the organization of that party, and has done much as a journalist to strengthen and build up his party in central Pennsylvania. He has served in Altoona as school director for twelve years, and a member of the borough council for five years, and was one of the first members of the city council. He is a member of the First Presbyterian church of Altoona, and is now serving as a deacon and trustee of his church. He has long been a member of Mountain Lodge, No. 281, Free and Accepted Masons; Mountain Chapter, No. 10, royal Arch Masons; Mountain Council, No. 9, Royal and Select Masters; and Mountain Commandery, No. 9, Knights Templar. Additional Comments: Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Cheryl Heny MHeny@Prodigy.net. This file has been created by a form at http://www.usgwarchives.net/pafiles/ File size: 5.8 Kb