My Genealogy Hound

JAMES S. KUHN, cashier First National bank, McKeesport, was born in Pittsburgh,, Pa., October 3, 1852, a son of Dr. John S. and Mary E. (Speer) Kuhn. His paternal grandfather, Adam Kuhn, a native of Eastern Pennsylvania, was a pioneer of Versailles township, Allegheny county, where he built a flour mill, and carried on the business of a miller and a farmer. The first coal ever run on the Youghiogheny river was said to have been mined on his farm. The maternal grandfather of James S. was Dr. James R. Speer, the well-known oculist of Pittsburgh. Dr. John S. Kuhn was a prominent physician of his day, for many years practiced his profession in McKeesport and Pittsburgh, and was one of the pioneer coal-operators on the Youghiogheny river. The subject of this sketch was reared in Pittsburgh and McKeesport, and educated in the public schools. At the age of fifteen he was employed in the First National bank of Pittsburgh, where he remained for seven years, and has now passed twenty-one years in the banking business. In 1874 he came to McKeesport, and for the past fourteen years has been in the service of the First National bank of this city in various capacities, his present position being that of cashier, to which he was appointed in 1884. His experience has enabled him to recognize and seize upon every circumstance that might contribute to the advancement of the interests in his charge, and the First National has now very few superiors in Western Pennsylvania, and much of its success can be attributed to the energetic efforts of Mr. Kuhn. He has been a director of the bank five years, is secretary and treasurer of the American Water-works company, of McKeesport, an organization with a paid-up capital of half a million dollars. He is president of the Russell Manufacturing company, and was one of th e projectors of the Youghiogheny bridge, of which he is half-owner, and is secretary and treasurer of the company. He is vice-president of the New Enterprise Building & Loan association, and for several years has been city treasurer. He has the reputation of being a successful and wide awake business man. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church; politically a republican. Mr. Kuhn married, in 1880, Ella, daughter of James and Eliza (Berry) O’Neil, of this city.