Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[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.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
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Updated: 30 Jun 2001