My Genealogy Hound

JOHN C. NESBIT, one of the oldest educators in Cumberland county, where he has risen to the front rank in the profession, comes from good old English stock, the first settlers appearing early in the eighteenth century in York county.

John Nesbit, grandfather of John C. Nesbit, was a farmer by occupation. He died in York county at an advanced age.

John Creighton Nesbit, son of John, was born in 1803, and died in York county, near Rossville, at the age of eighty years. He married Julia Klinedinst, and they became the parents of nine children: Elizabeth, who married A. P. Walker, a lawyer, and resides near Rossville; Lewis N., who married Kate Bushey, now deceased, and lives at Mt. Airy; George and Mary, deceased; John C., the fifth in the order of birth; Harrison, who married Mary Sutton, and lived in York county, and who was accidentally killed at the age of sixty-three; Joseph B., who married Mrs. Mary Brinton, and lives at Harrisburg, where he is foreman in the repairing department of the Harrisburg Traction Company; William, who married Tillie Wollett, and lives at Mount Airy; James W., who married Bessie Shaw, and lives at Mondovi, Wis., where he is superintendent of the public schools.

John C. Nesbit was born in Warrington township, near Round Top. After receiving a thorough schooling, at the age of eighteen he started teaching school in his native township. At the age of twenty-seven he went to the United States College of Business and Finance at New Haven, Conn., and upon his graduation there he received a first degree diploma. Returning to York county he remained but a short time, and then removed to Cumberland county, where he resumed his old vocation of teaching. In 1871 he was called to West Virginia, where he taught school for one year, at the end of which time he returned to Cumberland county, and taught in the Whitehall Orphan School, continuing there for three years. He then returned to Lisburn, and at that place and his present home, in Copper Allen, has since taught, being at the present still actively employed.

The only time that Mr. Nesbit allowed anything to interfere with his long service of teaching, some forty-five years, was in 1864, when on Feb. 22nd of that year, he enlisted at Harrisburg in Battery C, the 3d Penn. Heavy Artillery, Capt. King, afterward Capt. Bickley, commanding. He served his country faithfully, and was mustered out, Nov. 9, 1865, and needless to say at once resumed his old profession.

Mr. Nesbit is held in high esteem by his fellow citizens, and is now serving his sixth term as a justice of the peace, a period, when his present term expires, of thirty years. He is an active worker and class leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Until a few years ago he was in politics a Republican, but of late years he has advocated Prohibition doctrines.

In 1874 Mr. Nesbit was married to Sallie J. Sprenkle, and two boys blessed this union: Arthur E., who married Miss Eula Warner, daughter of Charles Warner, of Philadelphia, and who holds a responsible position as manager for Smith, Kline & French, wholesale druggists in Philadelphia; and Russell H., who is taking up the profession of telegraphy at Lebanon, Pennsylvania.