George
Reznor, manufacturer, inventor & Civil War veteran of Mercer died at his home at 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon.
Mr. Reznor was born November 9, 1835 in Lancaster County. His parents, John and Mary Reznor in 1842 settled on a farm at Leech's Corners, this county.
After attending the county school of his neighborhood, Mr. Reznor took service with the Cleveland Engineering Co. Later he began to read medicine in the office of a brother who was a Cleveland physician & surgeon. In 1861, he answered Lincoln's call for volunteers and abondoned his study of medicine, came to Mercer to enlist in the Mercer Rifles which later became Co. C of the 10th Pa. reserve Corp. He soon was promoted to sergeant. Though severely wounded in battle, he declined a discharge and served out his three years with credit, returning then to his old home at Leech's Corners.
Mr. Reznor became interested in polotics and was elected Clerk of Courts. He married
Miss Alice McKinney, daughter of John McKinney, sheriff of Mercer County, she survives with 6 children.
The vast number of orphans created by the Civil war, led Mr. Reznor with his brother-in-law, the late
J.G. White, to establish a school in Mercer for their maintainance and education, legislation at Harrisburg having already been enacted to this end. This institution, the Mercer Soldiers Orphans was continued till its charges, chiefly from Western Pennsylvania, were 16 years old. Mr. Reznor later released his interest to his partner and entered the drug firm of
Reznor and Williams and later that of
Reznor and Garber. Mr. Reznor perfected a machine for the manufacturing of illuminating and fuel gas from gasoline and later a gas stove. For the making of the later device, the Reznor Manufacturing Company was organized. Its plant is said to be one of the largest of its kind in the world.
GREENVILLE EVENING RECORD (PA, Monday September 24, 1911
GEORGE REZNOR
Mercer lost one of its best and most esteemed citizens on Saturday, when George Reznor
answered the summons of death and passed peacefully away at his home on East Market Street. Though he had been in frail health for many months, the end came suddenly and unexpectedly. During the afternoon he spent several hours with some of old comrades at one of their meeting places on the Diamond, going to his home about 4 o'clock. Within half an hour, while sitting on the front veranda, he was stricken with heart disease, dying almost instantly, The announcement of his death caused profound sorrow in the community.
Mr. Reznor was born in Lancaster county November 9, 1835, but in 1842 his parents,
John and Mary Reznor, came to Mercer county, settling at Leech's Corners, and since that time the family has resided in this section. After receiving such education as was to be obtained in the county schools of the day. Mr. Reznor accepted employment with the Cleveland Engineering Company and for a time was engaged in railway construction in the West and on the erection of the great viaduct in Cleveland. Then for a time he read medicine in the office of a brother, a physician of note in Cleveland.
In 1861 his medical studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil war. At the first call for volunteers he came to Mercer and enlisted in the Mercer Rifles which later became Company G. Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves. He was an excellent soldier and before his discharge was promoted to the rank of sergeant. In spite of wounds he served three years, after which he returned to Leech's Corners.
Some years after the war, having become active in politics, he was elected clerk of courts and moved to Mercer, where he resided until his death. On his retirement from office he engaged in various commercial enterprises with but indifferent success until the organization of the Reznor Manufacturing Company, whose chief output, is the gas stove of which he is the designer, and which has carried his name to the farthest corners of this and many foreign countries.
As an inventor Mr. Reznor had a reputation that was country-wide. Many years ago he conceived and perfected a machine for the manufacture of gas for illuminating and heating from gasoline which has proved of wonderful value. He was also the inventor of numerous other devices of much mechanical value, but his greatest success came after he had designed and placed on the market the gas stove that bears his name, and to the development and perfection of which he devoted all his wonderful energy and genius during his declining years.
About the time Mr. Reznor came to Mercer he was married to Alice, a daughter of the late
John McKinney, a former sheriff of Mercer county who survives with the following children:
Claud, of Sharon; Stella Webster,
Jesse and George F., of Mercer; Mrs. J. L.
Blatt, of Cleveland and Mrs. Edward H. Moore,
of Columbus, O.
The loss to the community in the death of Mr. Reznor is very great. Few men have stood higher in the estimation of their neighbors than he and few have merited such esteem as was accorded him. As a man and citizen his character was above reproach. Through years of struggle and disappointment he maintained unblemished a reputation for truth, honesty and fairness, for courage, resourcefulness and industry and for charity and consideration for those about him. A man of high ideals, unswerving purpose, unquestioned integrity and genial and kindly disposition, he trusted his fellow men implicitly and carried with him to the last the unwavering faith of all with whom he came in contact either socially or in business.
Funeral services were held at the home on Tuesday afternoon at 2 o'clock, conducted by
Rev. John S. Duncan and Rev. George Taylor, Jr., and his body was placed in the
Mercer
mausoleum.
THE MERCER DISPATCH, Friday, September 29,
1911, RECENT DEATHS
Both
obituaries submitted by Bob McKeon
