David D. Colcord  

DAVID D. COLCORD, P. O. First Fork. Among the men most closely identified with the early educational interests of Potter county, none are more deserving of special mention than David D. Colcord, who, in 1839, at the age of seventeen, came from Bath, Steuben Co., N. Y., to Coudersport to attend school and complete, so far as his limited means would allow, the education begun in the district schools of his native place. He attended the school then held in the commissioner’s office, no school-house having then been built, and in 1840, the academy having been completed, he attended that institution for two years. He then began teaching, and for nearly thirty years was found in the schoolroom each winter, clearing and working during the summer seasons a farm that he took up in the almost unbroken forest south of Coudersport. In 1844 he married Sarah, youngest daughter of John Peet, one of the earliest settlers of the county. This brave and devoted woman, early inured to the hardships of pioneer life, was indeed a helpmeet, eking out, with a frugal hand, the meager living yielded by the scanty wages of the teacher, and the sterile soil of the farm. She died in 1877. Seven children were born to them, four of whom died in the diphtheria scourge of 1862; one, Alice, died in 1879, and two sons, Mahlion and Amos, are still living. In 1864 Mr. Colcord enlisted in the army, and served till the close of the war. In 1868 he moved to First Fork, Cameron county, where he still resides, active and energetic, though nearly seventy years old. Since 1870 he has devoted a part of his time to the practice of medicine, which he studied while a young man. As a teacher he was uniformly successful, being thoroughly in love with his work, keeping abreast of improvement by professional reading, and attending educational meetings all over the county, often at serious inconvenience and pecuniary loss to himself. No sacrifice was too great for him to make for his school, and the salary was but a small part of his compensation. Both as teacher and director, which latter office he has held for many years, Mr. Colcord has been a champion of the free- school system, and an earnest advocate of the education of the masses. Generous to a fault, thoroughly honest, ready to divide his last dollar with the needy, turning no one from his door hungry, the acquisition of wealth has never been his ambition; and though poverty may have prevented the realization of youthful hopes, and kept him in the valley when he would have been at the mountain top, yet the retrospect of a life devoted unselfishly to the good of others must have its compensation.

History of the counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter, Pennsylvania : with biographical selections, including their early settlement and development, a description of the historic and interesting localities, sketches of their cities, towns and villages, portraits of prominent men, biographies of representative citizens, outline history of Pennsylvania, statistics. Chicago: J.H. Beers & Co., 1890, pages 1147-1148

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