Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897

JOHN B. IRVIN.

John Irvin

[p. 435] Among those leading citizens who have been engaged successfully in the pursuits of agriculture in Hickory township, and have acquired a comfortable competence thereby, John B. Irvin, whose portrait accompanying this sketch is shown on the opposite page, occupies a prominent position; he is no longer actively engaged in farming, but at the age of seventy-nine is leading a retired life on his fine farm, enjoying the grateful rest that comes after a life of toil. He was born June 21, 1818, on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Lycoming Co., Pa. His father, William Irvin, who was also a native of Pennsylvania, was a farmer by occupation, and after many profitable years in Lycoming County, he settled in what is now Hickory township, where he spent the remainder of his life in agricultural labors. His wife, who was Jane Brown before her marriage with him, bore him the following children: Eliza, deceased; Sarah; Greer; Nancy; Matthew; and John B., the subject of this sketch, who was the only member of the family to marry. Our subject's mother lived to the very advanced age of ninety-six years. They were Presbyterians in religious belief.

John B. Irvin completed his education in his native town, and at an early date turned his attention to agricultural pursuits. He came to Lawrence County and settled on his present farm in 1845, and this has since been his home and the scene of many years of labor, of seed-time and harvest. He was always a hard worker, and directed his energies in a manner superior to the ordinary farmer, and to-day he is held in the highest esteem as a man of sterling worth and many excellent virtues. Ever since the formation of the Republican party, he has labored zealously for its interests, his first vote being for John C. Fremont, and his last for Major William McKinley; prior to the time when he associated himself with the Republican party, he voted the Whig ticket. He has held the township offices of supervisor and assessor.

In 1839, he was joined in wedlock with Amanda McCreary, who was born Nov. 3, 1816, a daughter of John McCreary of Hickory township. This union has been abundantly blessed with these children: Margaret E., who married William Boyd, and has presented him with two children—Minnie and Sarah; William B., who was captured by the Confederates and confined in the rebel prison at Dansville, Va., and died the next year after returning home; Thomas D.; Martha W., who became the wife of Thomas Wilson of Neshannock Falls, Pa.; Willis E., who married Anna Buxton of Neshannock Falls, Pa., and had four children—John, Margaret, David, and Amanda; after her death he married again, this time to Callie Hayne of Mercer County, who bore him two children, Mary and James. Of the above family born to Mr. and Mrs. John B. Irvin, Willis E. is the only survivor to-day. In religious belief and church attachments, both our subject and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church of East Brook.


Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897

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