CENTRE LINES

The BRISBIN Family

This column is part of a feature series which focuses on a different Centre County family each week. Five new columns will be released each month unless some technical difficulty enters the picture.

This column's focus is on BRISBIN. An effort has been made to identify all persons carrying that name in the 1890 U.S. Census, using the Centre County business directory which was formed from a preliminary review of that census before the larger set of 1890 U.S. Census records was destroyed by fire. (Sadly, the postal directory does not typically provide the ages of females, but it's the best record we've got).

One book in the Pennsylvania Room of the Centre County Library in Bellefonte apparently deals in part with the Brisbin family. It is: Dwight P. Miller's Historical Notes; the Pennsylvania and Ohio Barr-Brisbin-Brown-Clifford-Horner-McTeer-Miller-Moorhead-Osborn-Thompson Families, Extending over Thirteen Generations, 1600-1973 (Camp Hill, Pa., 1973).

There are 14 different first-name entries for Brisbin in John Blair Linn's History of Centre and Clinton County (1883). In addition, there are several mentions of the name in Beers' Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania (1898).

And, now, your ancestors' Brisbin neighbors in 1890:

CENTRE HALL Borough:

Bruce D. Brisben, 42, postmaster Alice F. Beulah M. Roxana R.

COLLEGE Township:

Benjamin Brisben, 58, saddler--Lemont Lubitha Sarah W. Mary E. Lawrence, 22, laborer--Lemont Agnes L. Benjamin G. 2 Homer 4 mos.

FERGUSON Township:

Mary Brislin--Gatesburg