My Genealogy Hound

SILAS K. WESTEN is one of the leading business men of Cherryville and one of the most enterprising. His establishment is located on Main Street, where he is engaged in the manufacture of all grades of harness. He was born in Lehigh County, January 31, 1834, and is the son of John and Isabella (Knapp) Westen, the former born in Berks County, this state, and the latter a native of Stamford, Conn. The great-grandfather, Francis A. A. Westen, was a native of Germany, and a merchant in Berks County, Pa. Grandfather Knapp, born in Connecticut, was by occupation a teacher.

John Westen, the father of Silas K., was a harnessmaker by trade, which occupation he carried on in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, for many years. He was quite successful in this business, and was a man who commanded the respect and esteem of the best people of the community.

Silas K. Westen, the subject of this sketch, attended first the public and later the private schools of his native place, and being an apt pupil, gained a good knowledge of books, which he has put to practical use during his business life. When choosing an occupation in life, he followed in the footsteps of his honored father, under whose instruction he learned his trade. He remained at home until the year prior to attaining his majority, when he started out as a journeyman at the harnessmaker’s trade, working for a time in New York City. In 1862 he located in Cherryville, where for the following two years he was in the employ of his brother Francis. At the expiration of that time he established a business for himself, which he has carried on with success, and he is the proprietor of a well equipped store.

Mr. Westen was married in 1854 to Miss Hannah Young, of this place, and to them was born a family of ten children, six of whom are living at the present writing, and named respectively: Henry C; Sydnam J., who is engaged in the black-smithing business at Wilkes Barre; Clifford W., engaged in the harness business at Wilkes Barre; Ida, Mrs. Charles Hoats; Mary, Mrs. Mark Unangst; and Spurgeon A., a telegraph operator at Allentown. His eldest son is a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, holding a charge at Chesterton, Ind. The wife and mother died in April, 1876, and the lady to whom our subject was married the following year was Matilda Nagle, a native of Fogelsville.

In religious affairs Mr. Westen is a devoted member of the Evangelical Church, and has been Superintendent of the Sunday-school for many years. He is a Republican in politics, and active in the temperance cause in this locality. He is popular in both business and social circles, and has many warm personal friends who fully appreciate his worth and his natural kindness.