JUDGE JOHN FARRAR.
Judge John Farrar was born in Mount Pleasant township, Washington Co., Pa., Jan. 7, 1818, and died at his residence hear Burgettstown, Pa., Jan. 6, 1875. He was the eldest son of1 Samuel Farrar and Jane Simanton.
His early education consisted of that afforded by the common schools of that day, but he was possessed of a taste for literature and a thirst for higher education so strong that some years after arriving at maturity he studied the Latin and Greek classics, higher mathematics, and some of the natural sciences. In 1840 he was married to Miss Phebe White. For several years after this he engaged in farming, teaching school during the winter. Farming was a very discouraging business during those years famous for "hard times," so the young farmer, having a knowledge of the mercantile business, obtained while employed as a clerk previous to his marriage, forsook the fields and embarked in the store business, which he continued for a decade. During the first part of this period he strongly contemplated studying a profession,1 and at one time took initiatory steps to his end, but the claims of a wife and young children depending upon him for support caused the final abandoning of this intention.
Young Farrar's attention was attracted to politics by the famous campaign of 1840, when he cast his first Presidential vote for William Henry Harrison. In the great political questions that agitated the country after the Mexican war he took a deep interest, and from that time hence forth was a close student of national questions.
He removed with his family to Rock Island County, Ill., in 1853.
During the Presidential campaign of 1856 political excitement ran high in that land of Lincoln and Douglas, the champions of the opposing parties. Although a quiet farmer at the time, Farrar's zeal overcame his native modesty, and he mounted the stump in his own county for John C. Fremont and anti-slavery. Returning to his native county in 1857, he engaged in mercantile business in Burgettstown for several years.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion party hostility in this region became so bitter as to rupture society, churches, and families. Men engaged in business depending on the patronage of a community generally either kept their lips sealed or exercised great caution in expressing themselves on the questions that were distracting the country, lest their business should suffer. Contrary to this rule, and in opposition to the advice of his warmest friends, John Farrar, eminently a man of strong convictions and fearless of consequences when duty directed, was outspoken in his zeal for the cause of the Union, as well as in his denunciation of its enemies North and South.
In 1866 he was elected to the office of associate judge for a term of five years. When he entered upon the duties of this office a system of granting licenses to sell intoxicating liquors existed, under which it was a very easy matter to obtain a license, and as a consequence almost every village and hamlet in the county was afflicted with drinking-houses. Always having been a warm advocate of the temperance cause, he immediately went to work with his characteristic zeal to correct the evil, taking a firm and resolute stand against all licenses applied for under the then existing laws. Ere the close of his term of office, with perhaps two exceptions, not a drinking-saloon or bar-room remained. It was thus largely through his influence that Washington County was elevated to her present honorable and noble position on this question.
Notwithstanding the frequent and perhaps true assertion that ardent temperance men invariably suffer at the polls, he was elected a member of the State Legislature in 1874, when a number of other and honorable candidates of the same party from the same county were defeated. But death came, and he was carried to his grave the same week that he was to have taken the oath of office. His cherished wife died nearly five years previous to this.
It was, however, as a Christian gentleman that Judge Farrar was best known and most esteemed. In early manhood he became a member of the Presbyterian Church of Raccoon, next a teacher in the Sabbath-school, and then its superintendent, and ever afterwards connected with and working in the Sabbath-school in some way.
Soon after settling in Illinois he gathered together and established a flourishing Sabbath-school, from which soon resulted the organization of Beulah Church of the Presbytery of Rock River. In this church he was a ruling elder until his return to Pennsylvania, after which he served in this capacity in the church of Burgettstown, Pa., and in Raccoon Church until the close of his life.
Socially, he was gifted with a rare combination of qualities, easy, graceful manners, fine conversational powers, and a warm, generous, and sympathizing nature. Regarding no one, however poor and ignorant, as beneath his notice. Nor looking up to any, however wealthy and aristocratic, as above him, he was claimed alike by the high and lowly as a friend.
The universal esteem in which he was held in manifest from the positions he occupied at the time of his death. Filling honorable and responsible offices both in the Church and in the State; chosen to the one by the voice of the members of the church of his childhood, and to the other by the voice of the citizens of the county of his nativity, are facts that make an eulogy of words superfluous.
His family consisted of a daughter and five sons, viz., Mary L., now Mrs. Billingsly Morgan, of Canonsburg, Pa., S. Clark, for many years a principal of the Second Ward schools, Allegheny, Pa.; Preston W., physician in Nevada City, Iowa; John, a farmer, residing at the old family homestead; Watson W., a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, D. C.; and George W., merchant, at Braddock's, Pa.
History of Washington County, Pennsylvania
Judge John Farrar was born in Mount Pleasant township, Washington Co., Pa., Jan. 7, 1818, and died at his residence hear Burgettstown, Pa., Jan. 6, 1875. He was the eldest son of1 Samuel Farrar and Jane Simanton.
His early education consisted of that afforded by the common schools of that day, but he was possessed of a taste for literature and a thirst for higher education so strong that some years after arriving at maturity he studied the Latin and Greek classics, higher mathematics, and some of the natural sciences. In 1840 he was married to Miss Phebe White. For several years after this he engaged in farming, teaching school during the winter. Farming was a very discouraging business during those years famous for "hard times," so the young farmer, having a knowledge of the mercantile business, obtained while employed as a clerk previous to his marriage, forsook the fields and embarked in the store business, which he continued for a decade. During the first part of this period he strongly contemplated studying a profession,1 and at one time took initiatory steps to his end, but the claims of a wife and young children depending upon him for support caused the final abandoning of this intention.
Young Farrar's attention was attracted to politics by the famous campaign of 1840, when he cast his first Presidential vote for William Henry Harrison. In the great political questions that agitated the country after the Mexican war he took a deep interest, and from that time hence forth was a close student of national questions.
He removed with his family to Rock Island County, Ill., in 1853.
During the Presidential campaign of 1856 political excitement ran high in that land of Lincoln and Douglas, the champions of the opposing parties. Although a quiet farmer at the time, Farrar's zeal overcame his native modesty, and he mounted the stump in his own county for John C. Fremont and anti-slavery. Returning to his native county in 1857, he engaged in mercantile business in Burgettstown for several years.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion party hostility in this region became so bitter as to rupture society, churches, and families. Men engaged in business depending on the patronage of a community generally either kept their lips sealed or exercised great caution in expressing themselves on the questions that were distracting the country, lest their business should suffer. Contrary to this rule, and in opposition to the advice of his warmest friends, John Farrar, eminently a man of strong convictions and fearless of consequences when duty directed, was outspoken in his zeal for the cause of the Union, as well as in his denunciation of its enemies North and South.
In 1866 he was elected to the office of associate judge for a term of five years. When he entered upon the duties of this office a system of granting licenses to sell intoxicating liquors existed, under which it was a very easy matter to obtain a license, and as a consequence almost every village and hamlet in the county was afflicted with drinking-houses. Always having been a warm advocate of the temperance cause, he immediately went to work with his characteristic zeal to correct the evil, taking a firm and resolute stand against all licenses applied for under the then existing laws. Ere the close of his term of office, with perhaps two exceptions, not a drinking-saloon or bar-room remained. It was thus largely through his influence that Washington County was elevated to her present honorable and noble position on this question.
Notwithstanding the frequent and perhaps true assertion that ardent temperance men invariably suffer at the polls, he was elected a member of the State Legislature in 1874, when a number of other and honorable candidates of the same party from the same county were defeated. But death came, and he was carried to his grave the same week that he was to have taken the oath of office. His cherished wife died nearly five years previous to this.
It was, however, as a Christian gentleman that Judge Farrar was best known and most esteemed. In early manhood he became a member of the Presbyterian Church of Raccoon, next a teacher in the Sabbath-school, and then its superintendent, and ever afterwards connected with and working in the Sabbath-school in some way.
Soon after settling in Illinois he gathered together and established a flourishing Sabbath-school, from which soon resulted the organization of Beulah Church of the Presbytery of Rock River. In this church he was a ruling elder until his return to Pennsylvania, after which he served in this capacity in the church of Burgettstown, Pa., and in Raccoon Church until the close of his life.
Socially, he was gifted with a rare combination of qualities, easy, graceful manners, fine conversational powers, and a warm, generous, and sympathizing nature. Regarding no one, however poor and ignorant, as beneath his notice. Nor looking up to any, however wealthy and aristocratic, as above him, he was claimed alike by the high and lowly as a friend.
The universal esteem in which he was held in manifest from the positions he occupied at the time of his death. Filling honorable and responsible offices both in the Church and in the State; chosen to the one by the voice of the members of the church of his childhood, and to the other by the voice of the citizens of the county of his nativity, are facts that make an eulogy of words superfluous.
His family consisted of a daughter and five sons, viz., Mary L., now Mrs. Billingsly Morgan, of Canonsburg, Pa., S. Clark, for many years a principal of the Second Ward schools, Allegheny, Pa.; Preston W., physician in Nevada City, Iowa; John, a farmer, residing at the old family homestead; Watson W., a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, D. C.; and George W., merchant, at Braddock's, Pa.
History of Washington County, Pennsylvania
JUDGE JOHN FARRAR.
Judge John Farrar was born in Mount Pleasant township, Washington Co., Pa., Jan. 7, 1818, and died at his residence hear Burgettstown, Pa., Jan. 6, 1875. He was the eldest son of1 Samuel Farrar and Jane Simanton.
His early education consisted of that afforded by the common schools of that day, but he was possessed of a taste for literature and a thirst for higher education so strong that some years after arriving at maturity he studied the Latin and Greek classics, higher mathematics, and some of the natural sciences. In 1840 he was married to Miss Phebe White. For several years after this he engaged in farming, teaching school during the winter. Farming was a very discouraging business during those years famous for "hard times," so the young farmer, having a knowledge of the mercantile business, obtained while employed as a clerk previous to his marriage, forsook the fields and embarked in the store business, which he continued for a decade. During the first part of this period he strongly contemplated studying a profession,1 and at one time took initiatory steps to his end, but the claims of a wife and young children depending upon him for support caused the final abandoning of this intention.
Young Farrar's attention was attracted to politics by the famous campaign of 1840, when he cast his first Presidential vote for William Henry Harrison. In the great political questions that agitated the country after the Mexican war he took a deep interest, and from that time hence forth was a close student of national questions.
He removed with his family to Rock Island County, Ill., in 1853.
During the Presidential campaign of 1856 political excitement ran high in that land of Lincoln and Douglas, the champions of the opposing parties. Although a quiet farmer at the time, Farrar's zeal overcame his native modesty, and he mounted the stump in his own county for John C. Fremont and anti-slavery. Returning to his native county in 1857, he engaged in mercantile business in Burgettstown for several years.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion party hostility in this region became so bitter as to rupture society, churches, and families. Men engaged in business depending on the patronage of a community generally either kept their lips sealed or exercised great caution in expressing themselves on the questions that were distracting the country, lest their business should suffer. Contrary to this rule, and in opposition to the advice of his warmest friends, John Farrar, eminently a man of strong convictions and fearless of consequences when duty directed, was outspoken in his zeal for the cause of the Union, as well as in his denunciation of its enemies North and South.
In 1866 he was elected to the office of associate judge for a term of five years. When he entered upon the duties of this office a system of granting licenses to sell intoxicating liquors existed, under which it was a very easy matter to obtain a license, and as a consequence almost every village and hamlet in the county was afflicted with drinking-houses. Always having been a warm advocate of the temperance cause, he immediately went to work with his characteristic zeal to correct the evil, taking a firm and resolute stand against all licenses applied for under the then existing laws. Ere the close of his term of office, with perhaps two exceptions, not a drinking-saloon or bar-room remained. It was thus largely through his influence that Washington County was elevated to her present honorable and noble position on this question.
Notwithstanding the frequent and perhaps true assertion that ardent temperance men invariably suffer at the polls, he was elected a member of the State Legislature in 1874, when a number of other and honorable candidates of the same party from the same county were defeated. But death came, and he was carried to his grave the same week that he was to have taken the oath of office. His cherished wife died nearly five years previous to this.
It was, however, as a Christian gentleman that Judge Farrar was best known and most esteemed. In early manhood he became a member of the Presbyterian Church of Raccoon, next a teacher in the Sabbath-school, and then its superintendent, and ever afterwards connected with and working in the Sabbath-school in some way.
Soon after settling in Illinois he gathered together and established a flourishing Sabbath-school, from which soon resulted the organization of Beulah Church of the Presbytery of Rock River. In this church he was a ruling elder until his return to Pennsylvania, after which he served in this capacity in the church of Burgettstown, Pa., and in Raccoon Church until the close of his life.
Socially, he was gifted with a rare combination of qualities, easy, graceful manners, fine conversational powers, and a warm, generous, and sympathizing nature. Regarding no one, however poor and ignorant, as beneath his notice. Nor looking up to any, however wealthy and aristocratic, as above him, he was claimed alike by the high and lowly as a friend.
The universal esteem in which he was held in manifest from the positions he occupied at the time of his death. Filling honorable and responsible offices both in the Church and in the State; chosen to the one by the voice of the members of the church of his childhood, and to the other by the voice of the citizens of the county of his nativity, are facts that make an eulogy of words superfluous.
His family consisted of a daughter and five sons, viz., Mary L., now Mrs. Billingsly Morgan, of Canonsburg, Pa., S. Clark, for many years a principal of the Second Ward schools, Allegheny, Pa.; Preston W., physician in Nevada City, Iowa; John, a farmer, residing at the old family homestead; Watson W., a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, D. C.; and George W., merchant, at Braddock's, Pa.
History of Washington County, Pennsylvania
Judge John Farrar was born in Mount Pleasant township, Washington Co., Pa., Jan. 7, 1818, and died at his residence hear Burgettstown, Pa., Jan. 6, 1875. He was the eldest son of1 Samuel Farrar and Jane Simanton.
His early education consisted of that afforded by the common schools of that day, but he was possessed of a taste for literature and a thirst for higher education so strong that some years after arriving at maturity he studied the Latin and Greek classics, higher mathematics, and some of the natural sciences. In 1840 he was married to Miss Phebe White. For several years after this he engaged in farming, teaching school during the winter. Farming was a very discouraging business during those years famous for "hard times," so the young farmer, having a knowledge of the mercantile business, obtained while employed as a clerk previous to his marriage, forsook the fields and embarked in the store business, which he continued for a decade. During the first part of this period he strongly contemplated studying a profession,1 and at one time took initiatory steps to his end, but the claims of a wife and young children depending upon him for support caused the final abandoning of this intention.
Young Farrar's attention was attracted to politics by the famous campaign of 1840, when he cast his first Presidential vote for William Henry Harrison. In the great political questions that agitated the country after the Mexican war he took a deep interest, and from that time hence forth was a close student of national questions.
He removed with his family to Rock Island County, Ill., in 1853.
During the Presidential campaign of 1856 political excitement ran high in that land of Lincoln and Douglas, the champions of the opposing parties. Although a quiet farmer at the time, Farrar's zeal overcame his native modesty, and he mounted the stump in his own county for John C. Fremont and anti-slavery. Returning to his native county in 1857, he engaged in mercantile business in Burgettstown for several years.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion party hostility in this region became so bitter as to rupture society, churches, and families. Men engaged in business depending on the patronage of a community generally either kept their lips sealed or exercised great caution in expressing themselves on the questions that were distracting the country, lest their business should suffer. Contrary to this rule, and in opposition to the advice of his warmest friends, John Farrar, eminently a man of strong convictions and fearless of consequences when duty directed, was outspoken in his zeal for the cause of the Union, as well as in his denunciation of its enemies North and South.
In 1866 he was elected to the office of associate judge for a term of five years. When he entered upon the duties of this office a system of granting licenses to sell intoxicating liquors existed, under which it was a very easy matter to obtain a license, and as a consequence almost every village and hamlet in the county was afflicted with drinking-houses. Always having been a warm advocate of the temperance cause, he immediately went to work with his characteristic zeal to correct the evil, taking a firm and resolute stand against all licenses applied for under the then existing laws. Ere the close of his term of office, with perhaps two exceptions, not a drinking-saloon or bar-room remained. It was thus largely through his influence that Washington County was elevated to her present honorable and noble position on this question.
Notwithstanding the frequent and perhaps true assertion that ardent temperance men invariably suffer at the polls, he was elected a member of the State Legislature in 1874, when a number of other and honorable candidates of the same party from the same county were defeated. But death came, and he was carried to his grave the same week that he was to have taken the oath of office. His cherished wife died nearly five years previous to this.
It was, however, as a Christian gentleman that Judge Farrar was best known and most esteemed. In early manhood he became a member of the Presbyterian Church of Raccoon, next a teacher in the Sabbath-school, and then its superintendent, and ever afterwards connected with and working in the Sabbath-school in some way.
Soon after settling in Illinois he gathered together and established a flourishing Sabbath-school, from which soon resulted the organization of Beulah Church of the Presbytery of Rock River. In this church he was a ruling elder until his return to Pennsylvania, after which he served in this capacity in the church of Burgettstown, Pa., and in Raccoon Church until the close of his life.
Socially, he was gifted with a rare combination of qualities, easy, graceful manners, fine conversational powers, and a warm, generous, and sympathizing nature. Regarding no one, however poor and ignorant, as beneath his notice. Nor looking up to any, however wealthy and aristocratic, as above him, he was claimed alike by the high and lowly as a friend.
The universal esteem in which he was held in manifest from the positions he occupied at the time of his death. Filling honorable and responsible offices both in the Church and in the State; chosen to the one by the voice of the members of the church of his childhood, and to the other by the voice of the citizens of the county of his nativity, are facts that make an eulogy of words superfluous.
His family consisted of a daughter and five sons, viz., Mary L., now Mrs. Billingsly Morgan, of Canonsburg, Pa., S. Clark, for many years a principal of the Second Ward schools, Allegheny, Pa.; Preston W., physician in Nevada City, Iowa; John, a farmer, residing at the old family homestead; Watson W., a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, D. C.; and George W., merchant, at Braddock's, Pa.
History of Washington County, Pennsylvania
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