Jerome McCrystle    

Jerome McCrystle, superintendent of the operations of the Vesta Coal Company of Vestaburg, this county, and a mining engineer of high reputation in Pennsylvania, author of an informative book of standards published in 1918 under the title “Mine Tracks and Transportation” and widely recognized in the trade, is a native son of Pennsylvania and from the days of his boyhood has been engaged in engineering service, having thus acquired a varied and valuable experience, with particular reference to mining operations. Mr. McCrystle was born in the mining town of Minersville in Schuylkill county, October 8, 1886, a son of Dr. John and Teresia (Youngfleisch) McCrystle, the latter of whom was born at that same place and is still living there. She is a daughter of Christian and Louisa (Schmidt) Youngfleisch, natives of France, the latter an Alsatian, whose last days were spent in Minersville, where Christian Youngfleisch was for years engaged in business as a custom shoemaker with an extensive and largely patronized establishment. The late Dr. John McCrystle, who died at his home in Minersville on March 14, 1924, he then being past seventy years of age, had been practicing medicine at that place from the time of his graduation from the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in the early ‘70s. Dr. McCrystle was a democrat and had rendered public service as coroner of Schuylkill county. He was a son of Dr. Patrick McCrystle, a native of Ireland, who in his generation also was a physician at Minersville, widely known throughout Schuylkill and adjacent counties.

Reared at Minersville, Jerome McCrystle early evinced his interest in engineering processes and operations and when sixteen years of age, in 1903, left school and became associated with the operations of a mine engineering crew working out of Pottsville, the county seat of his home county. He presently became independently connected with the operations of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company and was thus connected in an engineering capacity for seven years, at the end of which time he was made division engineer for the Consolidated Coal Company at Jenkins in Luzerne county. Two years later he transferred his connection to the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company and for four years thereafter was division engineer for that company’s operations at Lansford in Carbon county. He then went with the Hudson Coal Company as special engineer and superintendent of that company’s operations in the WilkesBarre field and was thus connected for four years, at the end of which time he gave a year of special engineering service to the Glen Alden Coal Company, Scranton, and on January 1, 1921, entered upon his present service as superintendent of the operations of the Vesta Coal Company in the old river settlement around Vestaburg, where he has since made his home. Mr. McCrystle is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers and is widely and favorably known in his profession. He has written much along technical lines and, as noted above, has published a book which has come to be recognized as an authority on questions relating to mine trackage and transportation. In his political views he is in alignment with the republicans and fraternally is connected with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He is a close student and finds his chief diversion in his library.

On November 22, 1916, while residing in Lansford, Mr. McCrystle was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Maloy, a native of that city. They have two daughters: Elizabeth Lucille, born August 24, 1919; and Dorothy Jacqueline, born October 5, 1920. Mrs. McCrystle has had a normal school education and prior to her marriage was for some time engaged in teaching in the schools of her home town. She is a member of the Roman Catholic church.

History of Washington County, Pennsylvania, 1926; Forrest, Earle Robert, Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., pages 212-215  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.