BIOGRAPHY: Patrick E. DILLON, Cambria County, PA
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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 169-70
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PATRICK E. DILLON, a prosperous farmer, of Northern Cambria county, is a son of
Samuel and Susan (Noel) Dillon, and was born at Cresson Springs, Cambria county,
Pennsylvania, November 9, 1847. He traces his ancestry to Ireland, from which
country his paternal great-grandfather emigrated to America, locating with an
Irish colony at Baltimore, and here Charles Dillon, grandfather of the subject
of this record, was born. On attaining his majority he removed to Adams county,
Pennsylvania, where he engaged in farming and followed this pursuit all his
life. He was a member of the Roman Catholic church, and married Miss Mary
Strausbaugh, a German. To their union were born four sons: John, deceased;
Peter, deceased; Samuel, the father of our subject, and Charles, deceased.
Samuel Dillon was born in Adams county, Pennsylvania, April 6, 1802, and
removed to Cambria county in 1828. He had been reared on a farm, and, following
in the footsteps of his father, became a farmer. He first located on a farm on
Laurel Hill, Jackson township, this county, but only remained there a few years,
and then bought sixty acres of woodland, now Cresson Springs. Here he cleared
his farm, and made the first improvements at Cresson Springs. Previous to
locating on a farm he and his brother were wagoners on the old Pike, between
Pittsburg and Philadelphia and intermediate points. In the days of the old
Portage railroad he was employed as fireman, and later as engineer on that once
famous road. He lived in Cresson at the time the Pennsylvania railroad was
built, and some of the improvements he made at that time are still standing.
In 1854 he sold his Cresson Springs property and removed to Altoona,
Pennsylvania, where he remained two years, and then returned to Cambria county,
locating at Carrolltown, where he engaged in the hotel business; after four
years' experience in this line he returned to his farm life, and located on a
farm in Susquehanna township, where Hastings now stands.
He was a democrat in political faith, and about 1847 held the office of
county commissioner; at various times he filled a number of local offices in his
township. He was a devout member of the Catholic church. In 1824 he married Miss
Susan, a daughter of Nicholas Noel, a native of German, who located in Adams
county, and engaged in farming. To this marriage was born eight sons and seven
daughters: Margaretta, deceased, who was the wife of Edward McClosky; Charles,
deceased; Mary Ann, the wife of Wm. Young, of Adams county. William, now located
in Arkansas; during the late Civil War he served in the Confederate army under
Ge. Lee, and was present at Lee's surrender. He was wounded at Pittsburg
Landing; Catharine, the wife of James Kirkpatrick, a farmer of Carroll township,
this county.
Thomas, a soldier in the late war (Union army) died in the Alexander
hospital in 1863; Roselia, deceased; John, a farmer of Susquehanna township,
near Hastings; Patrick F.; Samuel, deceased; Jennie, deceased, who was the wife
of Augustine Kirkpatrick, and Elizabeth, deceased, who was the wife of Samuel
Irwin, of Adams county.
Patrick E. Dillon was reared on the farm, and received his education in the
common schools. Inheriting the taste for a farmer's life, he has always followed
farming.
In 1868 he bought his first farm; it was located in Chest (now Elder)
township, and contained seventy acres; he has since bought twenty-three acres of
adjoining land, all underlaid with coal.
He has been very successful in his agricultural pursuits, and is a first-
class general farmer.