WILLIAM PAUL. Of the names that remain permanently associated with the more recent development of the grand agricultural interest of Washington county, there is none deserving of a more prominent place in this volume than that of this gentleman. William Paul was born in South Strabane township, Washington Co., Penn., June 19, 1834, a son of Huston and Nancy (Heckathorn) Paul. His early life was passed under the parental roof, during which time he was attending the common schools of the district, where he received a liberal English education, which was supplemented by a course of study at Washington College. He continued to reside on the old homestead in South Strabane township, assisting in the general work of the farm, until 1870, when he moved into Franklin township and bought the Hon. R. R. Reed mansion, together with 110 acres of the very core of this vast estate, to which he has since added thirty acres. Upon this land there are several valuable producing oil wells. Some time ago, no other spot in the neighborhood of Washington being found desirable, the borough officials, in order to obtain pure water supply for the city, secured some eleven acres of Mr. Paul’s farm for that purpose. From this elegant and commodious residence a delightful view of the surrounding country is to be had, the calm and peaceful fertile farms. “the orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,” having, ever and anon, glimpses of another kind of existence, as the trains of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad rush past, awakening momentary visions of great far away cities teeming with life and seething with commercial enterprise and activity. In addition to his general farming interests, Mr. Paul does an extensive dairying business, the market for his product in this line being mainly in the borough of Washington; and in this, as in all of his other undertakings, he has met with eminent success--in fact, it may without prejudice be said of him that in the dairy business he is the leader in the county. On September 10, 1861, Mr. Paul married Martha, the refined and accomplished daughter of Samuel and Mary (Fife) Vance, of South Strabane township. Samuel Vance was a native of this county, born in Somerset township in 1791, of stalwart, truth-loving Scotch-Irish lineage. He died in 1874, a man of noble impulses, strict integrity and high character, qualifications that shed their influence for the public good whatever and whenever called into requisition by the people who honored him with many positions of trust. Seven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Paul: Philo V., Isaac E., Mary R., N. Alice and Mattie, living, and Samuel Huston and Cary Bell, deceased. In the early taking away by death of these two much beloved and promising lads, Samuel and Cary, the family and friends received a great shock, and a bitter disappointment to their high hopes. Samuel Huston Paul was born June 13, 1865, and died at 1 o’clock on the morning of September 26, 1886, after an illness from typhoid fever of three weeks. By those who once knew him, his fine, manly face will be no more seen. In the home, where he was so tenderly loved for his obedience and kindness, there is a melancholy vacancy. Among his many friends, with whom, because of his unflinching integrity, he was ever popular, he is spoken of with love and humor, as of one who could never be tempted away from what he thought was right. While yet the fond hearts of the family were in deep sorrow over the death of Samuel, there came another stoke, all the more severe because of being so sudden. On December 25, 1886, Cary, in his boyish playfulness, went out of the house, saying that he would “give a Christmas salute.” Soon after a loud report was heard, and poor Cary, a few moments before the life and soul of the family circle, cheerful and full of play, was found lying on the ground with his life blood fast flowing from a wound in the neck. He had bored a hole in a log and charged it with powder. The explosion must have been premature--evidently while he was bending over the log--a splinter entered his neck and severed an artery. Tenderly they carried him into the house and laid him on a lounge, but nothing could be done; he died in a few minutes afterward. Cary having being born January 17, 1869. Endowed with an unusual amount of good common sense, a cheerful, generous nature, kind and companionable in disposition, he has left to the grief stricken family and his friends naught but pleasant memories of him. “Why these twin afflictions?” the soul asks. “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there; There is no fireside, howso’er defended, But has one vacant chair. In his political preferences Mr. Paul is a stanch Republican, always taking an active interest in the public affairs of his township and county, and is a warm advocate of all measures tending to the advancement of educational interests. In religious matters he was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, in which he was an elder for twenty years, and on the organization of the Third Presbyterian Church, in 1891, he became a member thereof and an elder in same.

Text taken from page 355 of: Beers, J. H. and Co., Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893). Transcribed January 1997 by LuShelle Fletcher of Grand Island, NE as part of the Beers Project. Published January 1997 on the Washington County, PA USGenWeb pages at http://www.chartiers.com/.

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