Benjamin F. Gordon    

BENJAMIN F. GORDON, retired physician, Leesburgh, was born August 29, 1822, in Lackawannock Township, this county. His grandparents, Thomas and Jane (Young) Gordon, the former born in 1754 and the latter in 1751, were married in 1774, and emigrated from Ireland to America in 1790 and settled first in one of the eastern counties of Pennsylvania, but subsequently, about the year 1802, in Lackawannock Township, Mercer County, on Tract No. 581, in the third district of donation lands, which they had purchased. Their children were: Mary, born October 25, 1776; John (father of Benjamin F.), born April 27, 1779; William, born October 2, 1783; Jane, born November 25, 1786; Agnes, born April 29, 1790, and Thomas, born April 11, 1793. The first four were born in Ireland. Agnes was born on the sea as the family were coming to America, and Thomas was born in this country. Thomas Gordon, Sr., died October 16, 1822, and Jane, his wife, on August 27, 1835. John Gordon was married August 27, 1801, to Amelia Barton, born in 1775. He died at Pulaski, Penn., in the year 1839. His wife survived him, and died at the home of her son, Benjamin F., on July 24, 1853. To John and Amelia Gordon were born ten children, viz., Thomas, born July 2, 1802; Daniel, born April 5, 1804; Rachel, born May 5, 1806; Jane and Susan (twins), born July 4, 1808; Nancy, born July 24, 1811; John, born June 29, 1813; Joseph, born January 22, 1816; Emily, born in March, 1820, and Benjamin F. The latter was educated in the country schools and the old Mercer Academy. He taught school in Mercer in 1846-47 in an old building which stood near the present site of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1846 he began reading medicine with Dr. Baskin, of Mercer, and completed his studies at the Cleveland Medical College in 1849. In February of that year he began the practice of his profession at Leesburgh, and continued the same at that place for thirty-seven years. He was the examining surgeon for the county at the time the first draft was made during the war of the Rebellion, and was a member of the Legislature in 1879. His wife, Mrs. Isabel M. Gordon, to whom he was married November 12, 1850, was a daughter of James and Nancy (McDowell) Brandon, early settlers of Pine Township, this county. The Doctor and his wife have five children: Quincy A., William B., Mary A., Laura B. and Hettie M.

History of Mercer County, Pennsylvania : its past and present : including its aboriginal history, its early settlement and development, a description of its historic and interesting localities, sketches of its boroughs, townships and villages, neighborhood and family histories, portraits and biographies of pioneers and representative citizens, statistics, etc. : also, a condensed history of Pennsylvania. Chicago, Ill.: Brown, Runk & Co., 1888.  Read this book on line - Free Trial  Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!  Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.