Mercer County PAGenWeb

Daniel Backus 


DANIEL BACKUS,  farmer, post-office North's Mills, was born August 1845, in Mercer County, Penn., to Daniel and Mary A. (Kauffman) Backus, natives of Allegheny County, and of Scotch extraction. The parents settled in Delaware Township, this county, about 1837, and there the father died in 1845, and his widow subsequently removed to Fredonia where she died in 1884. She was the mother of two children: Mary J., married James White, and resides in Fredonia, and Daniel. The father was a farmer and owned 200 acres of land before his death. He belonged, with his wife, to the Presbyterian Church. Our subject was educated in the common schools, and worked on a farm until 1881, when he sold his farm and bought a saw-mill in Perry Township. This he operated for five months, sold and bought another mill in Cool Spring, ran it four months, then operated a mill in Butler County for six months, thence to Cool Spring, and pursued the same business for nearly two years, after which he ran another mill in Lake Township for two months, and then went to Fredonia and cut a large amount of staves, afterward going to Butler County, and operating a mill, which he sold June 10, 1887, and on December 1, 1887, he located on his farm of fifty-six acres, in Cool Spring Township, which he had purchased in 1884. He married Cyrena Keen, daughter of Reuben and Paulina (Mitchell) Keen, and by her has three children: Mintie, Mary P. and Fred. He was a member of the council of Fredonia Borough for three years, auditor and street commissioner of the same for two years each. He is a Republican, a member of the I. O. O. F., and, with his wife, belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.

 Source: History of Mercer County, 1888, pg. 975



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