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Valentine Beaver



VALENTINE BEAVER, of Shenango, West Salem township, Mercer county, a veteran of the Civil war, was born May 10. 1835, in East Salem township, son of  Peter Beaver, of Northampton county, Pennsylvania. In 1830 his father married  Hannah Wasser,  settled on a farm in Salem township and died on the old homestead in 1874. By this marriage  Mrs. Peter Beaver. who was the daughter of  Tobias Wasser, of East Salem township, became the mother of the following children:  Maria, wife of  Hugh McMillen, farmer of Salem township;  Polly, wife of  S. Gruber, a farmer;  Eliza, wife of  Joseph Shade, a farmer of Salem township;  Edwin, a farmer: and  Valentine, of this biographical notice. For his second wife. Peter Beaver  married October 12, 1843,  Julia Stenger, daughter of  Philip Stenger, a farmer of East Salem township. She was born in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania. By this union the issue was as follows:  Jacob, deceased;  William, a physician in Kansas;  George, a carpenter working at the Bessemer shops at Greenville;  Reuben, a Presbyterian minister of Delaware township, Mercer county;  Drusilla, wife of  William Reichard, a farmer of Delaware township, Mercer county;  Alice, wife of  Frank Huber, a workman at Greenville: and  Henry, deceased. Politically, the father was first a Whig, but later became connected with the Democratic party. He was a devout member of the Lutheran church, an exemplary Christian and a most worthy citizen.

Valentine Beaver attended school, until he was about nineteen years of age, and was employed on the farm until 1859, when he went to Illinois and followed agriculture in Wabash county until 1861; then retraced his steps to his native state and enlisted as a soldier of the Civil war. He joined the Union forces on the original call for three-months' troops and June 10, 1861, re-enlisted with the "Mercer Rifles." under Captain Wormer, officially known as Company G. Pennsylvania Reserves. He participated in the battles of Cumberland Valley and Mechanicsburg, as well as in the Seven Days' fight in front of Richmond; also at Bull Run, Antietam, Shenandoah Valley and die battles of the Wilderness, etc. His company was sent to the front in nearly all engagements, but he returned as one of thirty-four members of his command without a scratch or scar, being mustered out, June 12, 1864, having seen more than the average severe fighting of the brave soldiery of the Union army. After his marriage in 1865, he worked two years in a coal mine, was then employed by the old S. & A. Railway (now Bessemer line) as a carpenter, and for ten years at the pumping station, near Osgood, Pennsylvania. During his long service with the company, he lost but six days' time.
Mr. Beaver was married in 1865, in West Salem township, to Catherine Mathay. She was born October 3, 1845, in Germany, and came to this country when less than three years of age, with her father and mother, Peter and Mary (Eich) Mathay. The father was a farmer in that country and died on his homestead in West Salem township, Mercer county, in 1900. The mother died in 1906. This worthy couple were devoted members of the Lutheran church. The children born to Valentine Beaver and wife are as follows: Henry Peter and George Albert, engineers on the Bessemer railroad; Marguerite, living at home; Fred, deceased; Junius, principal of the preparatory class of the high school Walter D., a merchant at Greenville; Julia, wife of W. McDonald, an engineer; Catherine and Elizabeth, residing at home: Mary, postmistress at Shenango, Mercer county; Eva Josephine, attending school at Meadville and Charlotte Louise, in the Greenville High School.


Source: Twentieth Century History of Mercer County, pages 941-942



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