My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM B. SCAIFE (deceased) was born in the First ward, Pittsburgh, Sept. 5, 1812. His parents, Jeffery and Lydia (Barrett) Scaife, came from Yorkshire, England, to Pittsburgh about the beginning of the present century, and in 1802 Jeffery Scaife engaged in the manufacture of tin and sheet-iron ware. The latter died in 1846. William B., his only surviving son, succeeded to the business. Jeffery Scaife’s father was a tea-merchant, who died and was buried at Barbados. The family is of Danish origin, and has been traced back to the year 1653.

In 1833 the subject of these lines organized the firm of W. B. Scaife & Co., which engaged quite extensively in the manufacture of tin, sheet-iron and copper ware, and five years later he became sole proprietor. In 1867 the firm became William B. Scaife & Sons. Mr. Scaife died in 1876. He was a lifelong member of the M. E. Church, and was a whig and republican. His wife, Mary, was a daughter of Ephraim Frisbee, of Schoharie county, N. Y., and was born in Pittsburgh. They have six sons: Oliver P., Charles C., Laureston L., William Lucien, Marvin F. and Walter B. Oliver P. is a civil engineer, member of the firm, and identified with a number of Pittsburgh enterprises. Charles Cooke was educated at the Pittsburgh high-school, and entered his father’s office when seventeen years of age. Laureston graduated at the Pittsburgh high-school in 1866, at Yale in 1870 and Harvard Law School in 1872. He was admitted to the Boston bar, where he now resides and practices his profession. William L. graduated at Pittsburgh high-school, 1868; Yale, 1872, and at the Freiburg School of Mines, Saxony, Germany, 1875. Two years later he became an honorary member of the Paris Schools of Mining and Engineering. He is a chairman of the Scaife Foundry & Machine Co., in which all the brothers are interested. Walter B., the youngest member of the family, received the appointment to Vienna, Austria, of United States vice consul-general, where he has since resided.