My Genealogy Hound

PETER WERTZ. Among those who have come from outside counties and won an honorable place in the business history of Carlisle, Cumberland county, is Peter Wertz. He was born near the town of Landisburg, Perry Co., Pa., son of Henry and Eliza (Snyder) Wertz, his father being a well known farmer of that part of the country, where for a long time he held the office of justice of the peace. Henry Wertz was also a native of Perry county, but his parents, Peter Wertz’s grandparents, were born in Lancaster county, and removed to Sherman’s Valley while that part of Pennsylvania yet belonged to Cumberland county. The family originally were from Switzerland, but the date of their coming to America is not known. Henry Wertz died in January, 1903, at the age of eighty-five years; his wife died in 1902, aged eighty-three. The family generally have been a long-lived race, and Peter Wertz, Henry Wertz’s father, lived to the great age of ninety-two.

Peter Wertz’s childhood and youth were spent with his parents on the farm in Spring township, Perry county. In the winter months he attended district school and during the summer his time was occupied with such duties as are usually allotted to farmer boys. Upon reaching his thirteenth year he left home and came to Carlisle, where he entered the high school as a pupil, and in the various grades spent two years. That completed his education and prepared him for the serious duties of life. He next sought employment and obtained a clerkship in a general store in Landisburg, which he held for three years. This experience was valuable training, for it taught him the principles of business and made of him a practical and efficient salesman. Being now ready for greater undertakings he came to Carlisle and assumed a position as salesman in the store of John H. Wolf, wholesale and retail notion dealer. By his diligent and studious attention to duty he won the confidence and favor of his employer, and after a few years of service was taken into the business as a partner, under the firm name of J. H. Wolf & Co. Their store was then in Sipe’s Row, on the west side of North Hanover street, a short distance from the public square. Their business outgrowing the room they occupied they purchased a property on the opposite side of the street, and there erected a three-story brick building, with a store room specially arranged and equipped for the accomodation of their large trade. Their respective interests in the business having been equalized, they, on moving into their new quarters, changed the firm’s name to Wolf & Wertz. In 1895 Mr. Wertz sold his interest in the notion business to Mr. Wolf, and turned his attention in other directions. The Carlisle Chain Works being in the market, he purchased a controlling share in them, and became manager of the establishment. These works afterward consolidated with the Standard Chain Works, with the central office in the city of Pittsburg, which consolidation made Mr. Wertz a director in the Standard, and also a member of its executive committee. About the same time he became interested in the Imperial Dry-Goods Company, and was elected a director in it. This is a flourishing company, organized on the modern department plan, and has extensive stores at Carlisle, Altoona and Harrisburg, Pa., and Norfolk, Va., and the aggregate of sales made annually is astonishingly large. Among with his manufacturing and mercantile enterprises Mr. Wertz also engages in banking. Several years ago he was elected a director in the Farmers’ Bank, of Carlisle, and when in 1902, that bank was merged into the Farmers Trust Company, he became a director in the new organization and president of its board. The Farmers Trust Company is the largest financial institution in the Cumberland Valley, and some of the most prominent capitalists and business men of southern Pennsylvania are among its managers.

Mr. Wertz is assiduous in his attentions to every duty and trust with which he is connected, and consequently is a very busy man. Business to him is both occupation and recreation. He delights in it and is so completely absorbed in its attractions that he has either forgotten or neglected to get himself a wife. Although of agreeable personality and socially popular he is still unmarried. Such is the history of Peter Wertz, one of Carlisle’s leading business men, who began with nothing and by perseverance, economy and a cool head has achieved an honorable success.