My Genealogy Hound

LUCIUS H. McHOSE is recognized as one of the wide-awake and enterprising business men of Catasauqua, where he is engaged in the manufacture of fire-clay brick in company with David Hunt. They enjoy an excellent trade, and their business has been successful and has steadily increased from the beginning.

Hon. Samuel McHose, the father of our subject, was the first Mayor of Allentown, and was born in Lower Saucon, this county, February 16, 1816. He was a prominent business man of the city, and the builder of nearly all the blast furnaces in the Lehigh Valley. He departed this life in April, 1893, after an illness of two weeks. He was the son of Isaac McHose, and at his decease was in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

When a lad of five years the parents of Samuel McHose moved to Rittersville, where his father carried on his trade of a mason and brick-layer. When Samuel arrived at the proper age he became an apprentice under his father in the same business, which he followed until attaining his twentieth year. He paid particular attention to the erection of blast furnaces, and among the most prominent of those which he built were the Thomas Iron Company’s, at Hokendauqua; the Crane Iron Company’s, at Catasauqua; the Coplay Iron Company’s, the Lehigh Iron Company’s, the Allentown Iron Works, and the Allentown Rolling Mills. He was a projector of the Roberts Furnace, and at one time an extensive stockholder. Mr. McHose also built several blast furnaces in New Jersey, and was the contractor who erected the Durham Iron Works near Richmond, Va.

In 1854 Samuel McHose, in company with the late O. A. Ritter, established the Allentown Fire Brick Works on Front and Gordon Streets, and were associated in business for a quarter of a century, under the firm name of McHose & Ritter. In 1861 the former built and became one of the proprietors of the Hope Rolling Mill, which about fifteen years later was the source of heavy financial loss to him. For the ten years prior to his decease the father of our subject was engaged in the manufacture of fire-clay brick, which business is now carried on by our subject, and the firm hold leases on extensive deposits of Clay in New Jersey.

The political life of Samuel McHose is as interesting as his business career, and volumes could be written from his experiences in politics. In early life he was a Democrat, but during the ‘50s, while in Richmond, Va., he saw a slave sold from an auctioneer’s block, which caused him to change his political sentiments. After that time he was just as ardent a Republican as he had previously been a hard Democrat. In 1856 he became a resident of Allentown, and was at once active in politics, serving the North Ward of the borough in the council for several years.

In 1867, when Allentown was made a city, both political parties began to look around for available candidates for the first Mayor. Mr. McHose was nominated and elected over his opponent, the late Robert E. Wright, by a majority of ninety-two. In 1883 he was elected a member of the Select Council from the Democratic Fifth Ward, and at the organization of that body he was made its President, a position he filled with honor.

During Allison’s administration the father of our subject was a member of the Board of Health and a delegate to the National Convention that nominated Lincoln for President in 1861, and Grant in 1868. During the last ten or twelve years of his life he was regularly elected a delegate to all the Republican county and city conventions, and was in truth a “war horse” in that party.

While residing in Rittersville Samuel McHose was married to a daughter of the late Solomon Flores. She died seven years ago, leaving five children: Edwin, Monroe, Hiram, Lucius, and Mrs. A. T. Blank, of this city. Our subject was the youngest of the family, and carried on his primary studies at first in the common schools and later in the Allentown Collegiate Cadet School and in the Kutztown Normal. After leaving the latter institution he went to Providence, R. I., where he attended a preparatory school, after which he engaged in business with his father in the brick works in Allentown.

In the spring of 1877 our subject went West to Colorado, and remained in that state for seven years, prospecting. He met with fair success, and during his western trip visited the states of New Mexico and North Dakota. In 1884 he returned to Allentown, where he resided for twelve months, and then went to New Jersey and began working in the clay banks near Amboy. In November of the following year we find him in Catasauqua as foreman of the fire brick works, which he has superintended ever since.

In 1892 Mr. McHose, in company with David Hunt, leased the above plant, and in the manufacture of brick they are meeting with success. While residing in New Jersey our subject was married in Phillipsburg, in 1886, to Miss Sarah S. Weikle, who was born and reared in Allentown. Their union has been blessed by the birth of three children, Howard, Malcolm and Josephine.

The subject of this sketch is a demitted member of the Masonic fraternity, with which he was connected while in Colorado. In politics he follows the footsteps of his honored father and is a true-blue Republican. He is a Director of the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company in this city, and enjoys the esteem and confidence of the leading business men of the place. Mrs. McHose is a devoted member of the Reformed Church. For a further history of her family the reader is referred to the sketch of A. T. Blank, found elsewhere in this volume.