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Below is a family biography included in the History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania published in 1889 by A. Warner & Co. These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary. Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more. There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.
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HIRAM B. SINCLAIR, president of the First National bank, McKeesport, was born in Elizabeth township, Allegheny county, August 8, 1815, a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (McKee) Sinclair. His paternal grandfather, Samuel Sinclair, a native of Maryland, and of Irish descent, settled in Elizabeth soon after the Revolution, and cleared and improved a farm where Reynoldton now stands, and there died. He had but one child, Samuel, who succeeded to the homestead, residing there until his death. The wife of the latter was Elizabeth, a daughter of Robert McKee, a native of Ireland, and a pioneer of Versailles township, whose father, Robert McKee, built the first courthouse in Allegheny county, on the site of the present market-house in Pittsburgh. Samuel and Elizabeth Sinclair had children as follows: Jane (Mrs. William Edmundson), Rebecca (Mrs. Isaac Edmundson), Mary (Mrs. John Peoples), Nancy (Mrs. John A. Robinson), Robert, Louisa (Mrs. Samuel M. Rose), Elizabeth (Mrs. J. W. Edgar), Presley and Hiram B., who is the only survivor of the family.
Hiram B. Sinclair was reared on his father’s farm, and is now the only survivor the family. At the age of twenty-one he located in McKeesport, and embarked in steamboating and the coal trade, in which he was engaged until 1865. For upward of fifty years he has owned the ferry between McKeesport and Elizabeth (now Lincoln township). He was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of McKeesport, and is now (1888) serving his third year as president of the same. In 1840 he married Sarah J., daughter of John and Eliza (Work) Cunningham, of Mifflin township, by whom he has one daughter, Olean F. (Mrs. T. A. Miller). Mr. Sinclair is a prominent and enterprising citizen, and has held various local offices. In politics he is a democrat.
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This family biography is one of 2,156 biographies included in the History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania published in 1889 by A. Warner & Co.
View additional Allegheny County, Pennsylvania family biographies here: Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Biographies
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