My Genealogy Hound

JAMES YOUNG, ex-Sheriff of Northampton County, is a dealer in coal at Easton. He is also interested in the Northampton Hard Coal and Slate Quarries, being President of a company which operates mines in Plainfield Township affording employment to upward of forty men. For thirteen years Mr. Young was a member of the Council in South Easton, and under President Johnson’s administration was Postmaster at that point.

A son of Boyd and Jane (McColm) Young, Mr. Young was born January 8, 1830, in County Antrim, Ireland. His father, a native of the same county, engaged in farming there until 1838, when with his wife and five children he came to this country. Settling in South Easton, he rose to the position of foreman in the Steward Iron Company. His death occurred in January, 1881, at the age of eighty years, but his wife departed this life when she was only fifty-seven years of age. In politics Mr. Young was a Democrat, and in religion was connected with the Presbyterian Church. In his family of eight children our subject is the eldest, and the others are as follows: Gamble, William, Sarah, Eliza, Rose, Thomas and John. Rose died in maidenhood, and William and Thomas are residents of New York City, while the others have their home in South Easton.

James Young received common-school advantages in South Easton. He early set to work to make his own livelihood in the nail and wire mills of Steward & Co. He was for some eighteen years thus employed, and in that time gave good satisfaction to his superiors. At the end of that time he became proprietor of the Union Hotel of South Easton, which he managed for twenty-one years. In 1877 he was elected Sheriff of Northampton County, in which capacity he served for three years. In 1881 he went into the coal business with F. L. Terry, and after a partnership of five years our subject bought out Mr. Terry’s interest. He has since continued business on his own account, and has a large trade in coal, wood, blasting-powder, etc.

In educational affairs Mr. Young has always taken an intelligent part, and for one term served as a member of the School Board and five terms as Councilman. Fraternally he is identified with Easton Lodge No. 152, F. & A. M.; Hugh DePayen Commandery No. 19, K. T., and with Lehighton Lodge No. 44, I. O. O. F. Politically he is a Democrat. In his religious faith he adheres to the Presbyterian denomination, to which his father and grandfather also belonged.

In 1854 Mr. Young married Miss Mary E. Moyer, who bore him three children. William, the eldest, is a clerk in the employ of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and is a resident of Crescent, Iowa; Edward died at the age of nineteen years; and Sarah Jane keeps house for her father. Mrs. Young was called to her final rest in May, 1892, at the age of fifty-six years.