Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 659] has for some years past been recognized and regarded as one of the solid men of New Wilmington, Lawrence Co., Pa. Whatever success has fallen to his lot has come as the direct result of thrift and painstaking care of all the opportunities which have presented themselves. Mr. Broadbent is of a family whose traits have ever led them in the best walks of life. The blood that flows in his veins is of the same kind that has made the sons and grandsons of fair Britannia attain to prominence and utility at whatsoever point on this green earth the spirit of advancement has caused them to locate. Mr. Broadbent is a son of Henry Broadbent, and grandson of a gentleman of the same name.
Henry Broadbent, father of our subject, was born, educated and trained in England. His father, Henry Broadbent, Sr., had grown up in the dry goods business, so the young man knew quite a little of mercantile ways and methods, when, at the age of fifteen, he came to America. His first location was in Mercer Co., Pa., where after working a few years he purchased a farm of fifty acres. He conducted this place for two years, and then sold it and moved to Fayetteville, Wilmington township, where he went into the grocery business as a successor to his brother. Here he remained, leading a busy life, until his early death at the age of forty-nine. He left at his decease his faithful helpmeet, who was a Miss Liddie Waterhouse, and a family of five children, by name: George W.; William J.; Charles E.; Brooks, the subject of our sketch; and Thomas H. Though Mr. Broadbent departed this life a comparatively young man, he was remembered well by all of his children as a true and loving father, who had set them an example of the right way of living. His sterling qualities were spoken of with many words of commendation, and his blessed memory is held in reverence by his descendants, and others who came within the inner circle of his love and influence.
Brooks Broadbent received his educational training in the common schools of what was then a part of Mercer County, but is now included in Lawrence County. His boyhood days were busy ones, for he early learned the value of time and the sure and certain results of industry. At the demise of his father he partly inherited the place which he now owns, a farm comprising some 140 acres of choice land. When the father left this life and busy world behind him he had just begun a line of improvements which our subject has been diligent in carrying out. The house has been thoroughly remodeled and spacious barns, adapted for every conceivable need in that direction, have been erected. Every part of the estate, that would admit of a better condition, he put in that shape, so that it is now hard to find a better-kept piece of farming property, or one which shows more prominently painstaking care than does this one.
Mr. Broadbent was united for life in the bonds of matrimony with Lizzie Weed of Mercer Co., Pa., and since their marriage three children have become inmates of the household, and sharers of the parental love; they are named Nellie, Henry, and James R. The family have been brought up in the Presbyterian Church, of which the parents are regular attendants.
Mr. Broadbent of to-day is a hard-working citizen, one whose entire time is taken up with the routine work of life. He has in his life accomplished enough to justify him in retiring and taking the affairs of life easier; but so keen is his interest in the busy, work-a-day world, that he feels like sticking to his post until the grim reaper shall call him home. Everyone who knows Mr. Broadbent appreciates and respects his manner of life, and his common-sense way of looking at things. Cool and conservative in judgment, his ideas and opinions have weight among his colleagues. He is a man who knows much of life and human nature. He is a good judge of men, and rarely makes a mistake in his estimate of them. As a farmer, a citizen, and a true American, he stands among those who make up the best class of people of this, the fairest portion of the Keystone State.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
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Updated: 27 Jul 2001