Lewis Bush    

LEWIS BUSH, who has been among the foremost citizens of Erie for more than thirty-three years, is one of those rare characters who has always possessed the keen foresight to originate enterprises at the proper time and place, and the determination and practical ability to demonstrate their value. It is seldom in the business world that one finds in combination both the originator of a good scheme and the hard-working and successful promoter of its practical details. Mr. Bush is one of the rare exceptions, and he has therefore obtained financial substance and attained a wide name in Pennsylvania and the middle west as a pioneer in various fields of business which are now well cultivated and the sources of employment to thousands of men and women. Such men are far greater public benefactors than they themselves realize.

Mr. Bush, who is now the head of the Penn Carbon Company, is a native of Wachenheim, Germany; was born September 4, 1824, and emigrated to the United States in September, 1847. After residing in Ashland and Philadelphia for some time, in 1865 he purchased a farm of one hundred and forty-two acres in Venango county, Pennsylvania. It happened that he made the purchase at the proper time and place, for the excitement was then high over the “striking of oil” in that part of the state and the well which he sunk on his farm proved a good producer from the first. He also drilled two gas wells to a depth of two thousand feet, and he still owns and develops this original property which was the means of giving him his first decisive start in the United States.

In 1876 Mr. Bush removed to Erie, subsequently engaging in the meat business, and then for years conducted an extensive business as a wholesale and retail packer under the name of the Bush Provision Co. This latter plant had a daily capacity of three hundred hogs and one hundred head of cattle and he manufactured every day twenty-five hundred pounds of sausage. Before establishing his packing house, he had been the pioneer shipper of beef from Chicago to Erie, and later sold the business to his son Aaron F., who was at the time engaged in the fish business, and was the pioneer merchant in this line and was the first to employ a steam vessel in the fishing business, as he was the first to ship fresh and frozen fish from Erie to the eastern markets. Since 1893 Mr. Bush has turned his energy, capital and ability in the direction of the carbon industry, his interests being now actively represented by his son, H. Astor. He first erected six houses for the manufacture of carbon, later adding two, and has altogether placed in operation 17,472 lights, with five foot burners, which when running at full capacity consume two million feet of gas per day of twenty-four hours. It is almost needless to add that the market for this product extends over the civilized world, and that Mr. Bush is therefore a leading figure in a cosmopolitan industry.

In 1851 Mr. Bush was united in marriage with Miss Katherine Snyder, who was born in Mahantango, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, October 2, 1823, and died at Erie, May 13, 1905. The children of this union were Charles F., Aaron F., H. Astor, Elmer L., Mary, Helene and Katherine, now Mrs. Edward A. Phillips of Buffalo, New York. The father of the family, although in his eighty-sixth year, is in the enjoyment of good health, his daughters Helene and Mary being the light and comfort of his home—even in a more marked degree since the departure from his side of his beloved wife.

A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1909, pages 447-448.  More Erie 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.