My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS PENNINGTON GREGER, youngest son of David and Catharine (Blake) Greger, was born on the family homestead, near Blue Bell, in Whitpain township, February 25, 1854. He attended the public school in Franklinville until his sixteenth year, in the meantime assisting on the home farm. Later he was a student at Brunner’s Academy and School of Business at North Wales for one year, taking a general English and a commercial course. He next attended the School of Electricity of Professor D. E. P. Papas, Walnut street, Philadelphia, a school which held a high reputation at that time. He there took a two years’ course, meantime residing in Philadelphia, and after his graduation at once was engaged as telegrapher to the American Steamship Company. He afterwards accepted a similar position in the North Pennsylvania Railway Company. December 10, 1874, Mr. Greger married Miss Emily Jenkins, daughter of John and Eliza (Stover) Jenkins, her father being a prominent farmer of Lansdale. Immediately after his marriage Mr. Greger settled in North Wales, where he lived a retired life for about three years. In 1877 he entered upon highway contract work for the city of Philadelphia, in which he continued for two years, when he was appointed inspector of highways, and rendered useful service in that capacity for a period of five years ending in 1884. In that year he traveled in the interests of the American Mining Company of New York. In 1885 he accepted the position of inspector of electrical work for the city of Philadelphia, and which he held until the year 1900, maintaining his home in that city.

In 1902 Mr. Greger purchased one of the numerous farms formerly belonging to the William Singerly estate, in Gwynedd township, comprising ninety-seven acres of land, improved and meadow. Mr. Greger had, unlike many who leave the country for the city, never lost his liking for rural scenes and life or his hearty admiration for the works of nature, and his appreciation of the beautiful is evidenced by the appearance of his home and its immediate surroundings, its well-grassed lawn sloping gently down to the Wissahickon, shaded in spots by pine, cedar and oak trees of unusual size and symmetry. Since the original purchase Mr. Greger has acquired two more of the former Singerly farms, both contiguous to the one whereon he makes his home, and known as Hill Top and Evergreen farms. While thus living a pleasant, quiet and well contented life, Mr. Greger has by no means lost touch with the more busy concerns of life, but maintains an active interest in business affairs in the not-distant city of Philadelphia. He is highly regarded by all who know him, esteemed as a man of excellent character and kindly neighborly disposition.

Mr. Greger was three times married. By his first marriage (with Emily Jenkins) he had one son, Thomas Pennington. The mother of this child died, and Mr. Greger married, May 30, 1879, Elizabeth McCabe Dickinson, daughter of John and Elizabeth.(Bueler) Dickinson, of Syracuse, New York; she died in June, 1881. November 24, 1892, Mr. Pennington married Addie Elizabeth, daughter of William and Mary C. (Bradshaw) Applegate, of Camden, New Jersey.