My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM WARD, real-estate dealer, Pittsburgh, is a great-grandson of George Harding, a native of Bristol, England, who once owned and operated a tannery on the site now occupied by Independence hall in Philadelphia. John Ward, father of the subject of this sketch, came from County Derry, Ireland, to Philadelphia in 1787, being then some eighteen years old. He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Harding, and came to this county in 1809, where he engaged in farming on Bower hill and Robinson’s run, and retired on account of ill health, dying in Washington, D. C., in about 1840. His widow returned to Pittsburgh,, where she passed away at the home of her son in 1875.

William Ward is the second of eight children, and was born in Philadelphia, Sept. 6, 1807. He remained on the farm till 1831, when he married Mary McCoy, a native of this county, and moved to Pittsburgh, where he took employment in a shipyard, and became a competent shipwright. He formed a partnership with John Speer, and the firm of Speer & Ward built or purchased many of the steamers that plied the Allegheny and Ohio; among them was the Newcastle, the first to successfully navigate the Allegheny river, which they launched in 1836. Then followed the Forrest, Pauline, Avilene, Minstrel, Ohio Mail, Orphan Boy, Warren, Two Pollys, etc. Captain Ward retired from the river in 1854, and has since given attention exclusively to his real-estate investments, which have been large and successful. Besides his large interests in lands and houses in Pittsburgh, he owns nearly 40,000 acres of land in Marquette county, Mich., on which is located very valuable gold mineral, and including the town of Clarksburg, with blast-furnace, mills, dwellings, etc. He also has large interests in the city of Marquette, and his estate of a million or more proves his foresight and ready business acumen.

Capt. Ward served twelve years in the city council, being eight years chairman of the street committee, and for a like period a member of the board of guardians of the poor; he was one of the delegates who organized the republican party in Pittsburgh. In religious faith he is a firm Universalist. Of his ten children, five were taken by death within a year, all having reached adult age. Their names were John, Madison, William, Blanche and Sally (Mrs. Thomas Fulton). The living all reside in Pittsburgh save the son; they are Louise, George, Lenora (wife of Jasper Lawman), Mary E. (Mrs. Thomas D. Hodkinson), Matilda (wife of Capt. Isaac Whitaker). George resides at Centervale, Iowa, that town being located on his farm.