Levi & William Fish   

LEVI & WILLIAM FISH.  Though they lived outside the borough limits the business and occupations of the FISH brothers, LEVI and WILLIAM, and their descendants has been so interwoven with New Brighton activities that for the purposes of this history they may be classed as residents of the municipality. James and Ann Fish, his wife, came to New Jersey in 1839 from England, and moved to the outskirts of New Brighton in 1848. They were the parents of six children, Levi, William, Henry, John and Thomas Fish, and Jennie Lerch.

Levi and William were soon engaged in the business their father had pursued, stone masonry and contracting work. In a reasonable time they were able to buy land along Block House Run and open quarries upon it. They were strong men, did good work, and their services were in demand. All of the stone work on the first Beaver Court House was done by them as well as the repair of the walls of the canal race in Beaver Falls and numerous other jobs of a less public nature. Levi Fish started a brick yard on his farm on the site now occupied by the Brighton Clay Products Company, but he was primarily a stone mason, not a brick maker and the brick yard as a means of income was neglected for the better liked and probably more lucrative quarrying and stone work.

However, later on they took over a brick yard upon one of their properties in the Marion Hill district for financial reasons. This was operated more successfully by Levi than the other venture, but William continued to be a mason and permitted his brother to have all the honor he could get in managing the yard. It was finally destroyed by fire. In 1860 Levi built the large house at 1029 Tenth Avenue. In the same year he was married to a daughter of John Hays. In 1875-1878 he served as County Commissioner. Dying in 1889, he was survived by James C., John M., and Thomas M. Fish and Nellie I., later wife of L. D. Park. James C. studied medicine at Philadelphia, Leipsic, Germany, and Vienna, Austria, and was a successful physician in Beaver Falls, where he died about 1920. All the others are deceased with no descendants except Dr. John Park of Oklahoma, son of Nellie I. Park.

William Fish was married in 1875 to Mina Friday of Lawrence County and died in 1907. His children were Jane, Edward, Henry, Ralph and William; the latter a former soldier who has been dead a couple of years. At his death, Lieutenant Colonel Fish was connected with the Pennsylvania National Guard.

William Fish, (Sr.) and Levi were both members of the 6th Regiment Pennsylvania militia in the Civil War. Their brother, John Fish, was a member of the 100th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers and died in Covington, Ky., in 1863, after being wounded in battle.

Thomas first enlisted in Company “E” 134th Pennsylvania Volunteers and upon being discharged reenlisted and was commissioned Second Lieutenant in Battery “B” 5th Artillery.

Henry conducted a coal yard up Block House Run upon the site of the former Sewer Pipe Works. He has been dead several years.

History of New Brighton 1838-1939, published by the Historical Committee of the Centennial, Butler, PA, pages 29-30. More Beaver County History Books  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.