My Genealogy Hound

JOSHUA RHODES, president Pennsylvania Tube-works, Pittsburgh, was born in 1823, in London, England. Several years later his parents, Charles and Lucy (Kipps) Rhodes, came with their family of seven children to America and settled at Pittsburgh. The father, who was a carpenter and lumber merchant, died in 1840; the mother survived him forty-five years. Joshua Rhodes is the sixth child, and the only one living, save the youngest, a sister. When twelve years old he entered a grocery store, and in 1839 he opened a similar establishment on his own account, but in following year was burned out. After a short trip to New Orleans he returned to Pittsburgh and engaged in the grocery trade with Jones & Gould. In 1843, he embarked in the confectionery trade, and soon after established the largest cracker factory then in Pittsburgh, which he sold. He then engaged in the brewing business, as head of the firm of Rhodes & Verner, who purchased the brewery of Tracy & Wilkinson. After building a, large brewery and warehouse, Mr. Rhodes bought the interest of his partner, and afterward sold to Darlington & Co. He then leased a pipemill on Hare’s Island, which he afterward bought; then formed a stock company with a capital of $1,200,000, of which he was made president, and purchased the Creston Tool-works at Soho, which is now the plant of the Pennsylvania Tube company. Mr. Rhodes, with others, secured the charter of the Union and Point bridges, and the Penn incline, and is president of the companies which operate them. He is a director in the Citizens’ and Transverse Street railways, and in the Citizens’ and Pittsburgh Traction companies; is a stockholder in the Pennsylvania Construction company. He was made a director in the Central National Bank, at its organization, and is now vice-president.

Mr. Rhodes married, in 1861, Eliza Hazlett, a native of Pittsburgh, of English descent, and they have four children: William, Joshua Walter, Mary and Annie. Mr. Rhodes voted for Henry Clay, and has always been a whig and republican. He and his wife attend the Presbyterian Church.