Hi,
Not my line but found while researching. The link is below.
Search Terms: CALHOUN (1)
Database: Pennsylvania Biographical Sketches, 1868 Combined Matches: 1
Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Biography of Pennsylvania, Volume II
Calhoun was born in the little village of Tamworth, Carroll County, New
Hampshire, August 30, 1813, and died at Ridgway, Elk County,
Pennsylvania, June 30, 1888. His life presents a remarkable illustration
of the possibilities of our country. The history of his early struggles,
his laborious youth and final success is pregnant with meaning to every
young man on this continent. His parents were Jacob and Comfort Hyde. He
was one of a family of nine children: Asenath, Joseph, Adaline, Maria,
Eliza, Catharine, Jacob, Portland and Henry. At the age of nineteen the
subject of this sketch, owing to his father's business embarrassments,
brought about by injudicious endorsement for friends, was constrained to
quit the parental roof and seek a living for himself. He went to Bangor,
Maine, where he secured work on a saw mill at a salary of thirteen
dollars a month. He remained in that vicinity, working in mills and in
the lumber woods, for a period of nearly five years, during a large
portion of which time his wages were remitted to his father to aid his
struggles at home. In the fall of 1836 he went to Baltimore, where he
remained a year. In 1837 he came for the first time to Elk County. He
remained a short time at Caledonia and then drifted to Ridgway, where he
secured work digging on an embankment for Enos Gillis. He then secured a
contract from Mr. Gillis to run his mill, but this not proving
profitable he removed in 1840 to St. Croix, Wisconsin, where he worked
as a common laborer in the lumber woods for about a year. He was here
taken with a severe spell of illness, and thoroughly disheartened and
discouraged, decided to return to Ridgway, where he again went to work
in the lumber woods. His sister Adaline at this time came on from New
Hampshire and kept house for him in the "Red House," an old landmark
well remembered by the older citizens of Ridgway. Mr. Hyde's stories of
his poverty at this time, and the makeshifts to which at times they were
reduced in order to make both ends meet, were both laughable and
pathetic. On the 25th day of July, 1842, he married Jane, daughter of
Enos Gillis, and niece of Hon. James L. Gillis. They lived at
Montmorency about two years and then moved to Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania,
where their oldest child, Eliza, widow of the late Hon. John G. Hall,
was born. He there found some work about the foundries, but not enough
to keep him busy, and in 1846 he returned to Elk County, determined to
cast his final lot there. Enos Gillis, his father-in-law, had in the
meantime moved by wagon to Marshall, Michigan, and when Mr. Hyde
returned he took up his quarters at the Gillis & McKinley mill, now
owned by B. F. Ely. The following year he bought the mill and about four
hundred acres of land adjoining, on credit. This marked the turning
point in his business career. Prior to this time it had been a hard
struggle for existence, but from this date his untiring industry was
rewarded, and his indomitable will commanded success. He lived there
three years, at the end of which time he was worth three thousand
dollars. He then opened a small store, from which he supplied the
country people with goods in exchange for shingles and other products of
the camps. He also began to buy timber lands as fast as his credit
extended, and tract after tract, mill after mill, were added to his
possessions, until he became the leading lumberman of the county. In
1862 he built the residence on the home farm at Hellen, where he has
since resided. From this time forward his history has been to a large
extent the history of the county. At his death he was undoubtedly the
wealthiest man in Elk County. His wealth consisted in timber and coal
lands, factories, stores, mills etc., in the county, and in large real
estate interests in Louisville, Kentucky, Pittsburgh, Freeport and other
cities. He was sagacious and enterprising in business affairs, as the
numerous enterprises of which he was the projector will abundantly
testify. He despised dishonesty and idleness, but loved the honest and
faithful, however lowly. He was a man of the people, with a profound
contempt for pride of wealth or position. He was extremely tender
hearted and could not bear to look upon a human being in pain. He was a
large employer of men, and his funeral services held at Ridgway,
previous to his removal to Painesville, Ohio, where he was interred by
the side of his wife, were characterized by the large attendance of
laboring men, a tribute to one who, as an employer, would do without
food and sleep rather than that any man in his employ should lack them.
In his last sickness he was full of charity for all, excusing the
shortcomings of others and thoroughly resigned to the death whose coming
he knew was imminent. He was a man of magnificent physique and fine
personal appearance, and up to the time of the illness which caused his
death was wonderfully well preserved for his years. He was never a
candidate for office, but was strong in his political convictions, and
throughout his entire life was an earnest Democrat of the Jacksonian
type. He was a man of strong prejudices and imperious temper, a
necessary adjunct to that sturdy and courageous New England character
which eventually made his name synonymous with the material prosperity
of Elk County. His life was a well rounded one, and he died full of
years and honors. He was the very type of the courageous, hardworking,
tenacious, brainy New Englander, and his career is a monument to
tireless industry and clean-handed business integrity. Mr. Hyde's health
begun to fail in the spring of 1888. On an examination made by his
physicians it was found that he had acute cystitis, and after some weeks
of patient suffering his system gave way under it. He died at his
residence in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, at ten o'clock on Saturday night,
June 30, 1888. On the following Monday, July, 2, the impressive services
of the Episcopal Church were conducted over the remains by the Rev. C.
J. Shrimpton. At the conclusion of the services the funeral party took a
special car for Painesville, Ohio, where, by the request of the
deceased, he was interred by the side of his first wife. The
pall-bearers, chosen by Mr. Hyde himself, were Messrs. Andrew Kaul,
Hiram Carman, Hezekiah Horton, W. P. Murphy, Thomas Calhoun and Hon.
George D. Messenger. Mr. Hyde was twice married. By his first wife,
--who died August 31, 1864, --he had four children, all of whom survive
him, viz; Mrs. John G. Hall, Mrs. Esther L. Campbell, Mr. W. H. Hyde and
Mrs. J. K. P. Hall. In 1866 he married his second wife, Mrs. Nancy B.
Campbell, a widow, who died in January, 1882, and by whom he had no
children.
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