My Genealogy Hound

S. P. BACASTOW, one of the most prosperous young business men of Monroe township, Cumberland county, is of German ancestry. It is not known whether two or three brothers of the same name (then spelled Backenstow) came to America from the Fatherland, but it is known that they settled in Berks and Dauphin counties, one of them, the great-grandfather of S. P. Bacastow, making his home in Dauphin county, Pa., where he engaged in tanning.

George Bacastow, grandfather of S. P., was born in Dauphin county, and there received a common school education. He learned his father’s trade, tanning, which he followed all his life, and he died in Hummelstown, Dauphin county, in 1839. He had two sons, George and John, the latter the father of our subject. George Bacastow, the eldest son, was born in Dauphin county, learned the tanner’s trade with his father, and followed same until his death, at the age of thirty years.

John Bacastow was born in 1814 at Hummelstown, Dauphin county, and received his education in the common schools of the home neighborhood. During his early manhood he was not at all robust, so he engaged in farming in his native county. After his marriage he located at Highspire, in that county, where he remained a few years, and then moved to Hummelstown, where he passed the remainder of his days, dying in 1879, at the age of sixty- four years. He married Mary Brenner, daughter of Peter and Mary (Zimmerman) Brenner, of Dauphin county, and she still survives, now making her home with her son, S. P., in Monroe township. To Mr. and Mrs. Bacastow were born children as follows: Elizabeth, wife of Daniel Kline, a farmer of Lebanon county; Rebecca, wife of Elijah Leese, a resident of Dauphin county, where he is engaged in farming; Franklin P., a farmer in Dauphin county, who married Mary A. Urich; George T., who married Angie Crampton, and is engaged in farming in Kansas, about five miles from Arkansas City; Morris H., who is a farmer in Kansas, and who married Elizabeth Hemperly; and Emma F., who is living with her mother and brother in Monroe township.

S. P. Bacastow was born Jan. 24, 1872, in Dauphin county, and received his early education there in the common schools. Later he attended the Lebanon Valley College for five years, graduating from that institution in 1893, at the head of his class. Following this event he traveled for six months in the West, and on his return to Pennsylvania located at Sand Beach, Dauphin county, where he engaged in the milling business. Remaining there two years, he came to Boiling Springs. Cumberland county, and for five years ran the old Boiling Springs mills, in 1902 settling at his present location. He is now doing business at the old Leidigh mills, at Leidigh’s Station, along the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, enjoying as good a patronage as any of the mills along the Yellow Breeches creek. He also carries on a coal business, in which line he has made quite a success, being properly considered one of the most thrifty young men in the township.

Mr. Bacastow was married, June 18th, 1902, to Miss L. Goldie Rinehart, daughter of John and Sarah Jane Rinehart, of Boiling Springs. Mr. Bacastow follows in the footsteps of his forefathers, being a Democrat in politics and a Lutheran in religious faith. Fraternally, he is a member of Lodge No. 91, I. O. O. F., Carlisle; Lodge No. 21, F. & A. M., Harrisburg; B. P. O. E., No. 578, Carlisle; Knights of Malta, Mechanicsburg; Knights of Pythias, Allen; Patriotic Sons of America, Hummelstown; and Modern Woodmen of America, of Boiling Springs.