Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 342] manager of the Edwin Bell & Sons Co.'s keg factory at New Castle, was born Jan. 26, 1869, in Pittsburg, Pa. He was reared and educated in that city, and as his father died when our subject was quite young in years, he was thrown upon his own resources at an early age and forced to take care of himself. When he was about eight years of age, he went to work for his uncle on a farm about eight miles from Pittsburg; after spending four years of pretty hard labor for one so young, and receiving no compensation except his "keep," he left his uncle and hired out on a farm for fifty cents a day. At length becoming tired of farm life, as ill-suited to one of his natural bent, he resolved to return to the city and make a living for himself. He secured work in a keg factory, and remained with the firm with which he first engaged to work, until that firm closed out its business in 1888.
In the same year he secured a position in the employ of the Edwin Bell & Sons Co.; and worked at their factory in Pittsburg until 1892, spent a year in another of their factories at Beaver Falls, Pa., and in 1893 came to New Castle to manage the firm's keg factory, and is still efficiently fulfilling the duties of that position. Mr. Pleas shows his aggressive and energetic nature in the way in which he has surmounted all obstacles and risen to his present place of authority and responsibility from apprenticeship through the different grades. He is a master of all the details of the business which he has in charge, and superintends all departments of the factory.
Our subject married Bessie L. Griffith, daughter of Israel N. Griffith, whose sketch is found on another page of this book.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
Previous Biography | Table of Contents | Next Biography
Explanation/Caution | Lawrence Co. Maps | Lawrence Co. Histories
Updated: 26 May 2001